Moon
by secretsinrain
Summary: Everyone knows what a Nord values in his woman: strength, power, dominance, and the ability to hold her liquor. So why is it that he wants someone who has none of these things? Why is it that she makes him feel...FarkasxOC.
1. Chapter 1: Modeling

By all accounts, this was wrong.

All wrong.

He was a high-ranking member of the Companions, a member of the Circle itself. An officer of one of the most revered organizations in all of Skyrim. He didn't have time for romance. And, if he did, it would be with a strong Nord woman well-versed on the fields of battle, someone he could fight back to back with. Not..._this_. Not _her._

But none of these thoughts comforted him when he saw her there. They only resonated and strengthened the one true thought screaming in his mind.

_This is wrong. This is all wrong. It wasn't supposed to be this way._

He hadn't even noticed the shop going up, and by all accounts, he should have. It's not every day that a new building is erected in Whiterun. It's not as though they have a lot of space, and what few houses they do have are crammed together like fish in a fisherman's net. Although, he thought, it wasn't exactly like it was out in front near the gates or Jorrvaskr itself, either. Because of the aforementioned lack of space, the new building went right in the Southeastern corner of the city, in an area hard to advertise.

So that was probably why he ran into her that day. Likely, she had been out trying to find a willing victim.

"Excuse me! Oh...excuse me...sir...?" A small, tanned hand caught his, oh so gently.

He nearly jumped, despite the woman's gentility. He had been deep in thought about the battle he had just come back from, how, for some reason, even though all the odds were against him, everything went remarkably in his favor. So when he looked down- and it was fairly far down- he was probably a little more taken aback than usual with the sight before him, a lot more taken aback with what the sight did to his heart rate, and extremely taken back with the way he felt his wolf stir inside of him at her presence.

"Ah, I'm sorry." The woman let go of his hand, blushing a little. She was so small, standing maybe at around 5'2, and her skin was fair. She was an Imperial, with long, straight chestnut brown hair and the deepest, most innocent blue eyes he'd ever seen. Her cheeks and nosed were dusted with light freckles, and her cheekbones were high and striking. Her lips were average, or maybe a little thinner than they should be- but he belatedly wondered why he was even looking at her lips in the first place. The outfit that the girl she was wearing, though he supposed was probably 'in fashion', clearly regulated her as a commoner, someone with no fighting skill whatsoever, and therefore, no one he'd be interested in. Right?

"It's just," She continued, her voice soft, but in no way deterred, "I was hoping you might have a moment to help me with something...please?"

Ah, now this...he relaxed. This was clearly something he knew how to handle. "Cutpurse steal your things, miss?" He asked, now confident...well, confident enough until she looked up at him through her eyelashes and stole his breath with her simple innocence. The look of someone who'd never done battle a day in her life. Never spilled a drop of blood. Never hurt a fly.

"...No," She said, and dropped her gaze, "...But if you're too busy..."

"No," He said hurriedly, even though he was inwardly cursing himself. Of course he was too busy. He didn't have time for this. They were expecting a full report back at Jorrvaskr. "What do you need?"

"Good!" She did a complete 180- inwardly, he had to wonder if she 'played' him somehow, with how quickly she did an emotional turn-around...or maybe that's just normal civilian female behavior- and took his hand, pulling him towards the new building that had just been erected.

He is surprised at her determination and allows himself to be pulled towards the building. "...Uh," He says, "I'm not much of a carpenter,"

"No, I know," She said brightly. "You're a Companion."

"Right," He says, wondering how she could possibly know that. "...So...a skeever problem, or...?"

"Nope! I killed all those last night."

He couldn't tell if she was joking, or not.

"Now, the frostbite spiders on the other hand..."

Despite himself, he froze. Spiders? Of all the things to be asked to handle, of all the things a beautiful maiden could ask of him to do...great, well, there went his chances at ever impressing this strange Imperial woman. ….Not that he needed to impress her, anyway.

"...I'm only kidding."  
>He looked down at her. "...What?"<p>

"I said I was only kidding, it's just...you looked worried."

"I was not worried," He says stubbornly, "I could kill a frostbite spider with one arm behind my back."

She smiled innocently at him again, and his frown falters. "I know," She says, "I thought you were maybe worried for my sake."

Well, that was a first. To have his dignity saved by a stranger.

"Anyway!" She let go of his hand, and unlocked the building- he could see now that it's some kind of shop.

"I just need you for a few afternoons, I'd of course compensate you for your time..."

The sign displayed indicated that it was a tailoring shop. "Celestial Cloths." What could she possibly want with him in this sort of place? "...Do you need me to...reach some things off the top shelf?" He asks, in bewilderment. Of course, as usual, he doesn't think before he says this, and so...

"No," She said, puffing her cheeks out, looking offended.

"Oh, geeze. I didn't mean..."

"I have a perfectly good stool, thanks very much. And besides. I had my shelves special ordered to be my height. Had this place built from the ground up. Nothing I can't reach."

"Oh, well that's..." Something he never had to worry about.

"Smart," She said, a little smugly. "I know." She turned her back to him and entered the shop- which is filled to the brim with various fabrics, and outfits of all kinds hung up. The very fanciest – and most expensive- dresses were on displayed on mannequins. They seemed to be fashions from all over Tamriel – in fact, they were. Each province was separated into its own section. Of course, there were a few missing, but, "The rest of the provincial clothing is the second floor. But see...doesn't this look bare to you? Like it's missing something?"

Actually it didn't. But what did he know about clothes? "Um...?"

"I don't have any _men's clothes,_" She said secretively, in hushed tones.

He stepped inside finally, shutting the door behind him. "So you don't," He said, still unsure what this had to do with him. "But it's not like we...hey." Before he had even realized she was gone, she had come back with a roll of measuring tape, and a scary-looking cushion device that held a lot of pins. "...What're you going to do with that?"

She giggled softly.

"...Why are you laughing? Are you..." His thoughts raced. Maybe she was a witch! That would explain her weird charm, these strange devices, the fact that she pulled him into a place no one would ever look for him. "Are you a witch? Is this some kind of set up?" He starts to reach for his axe.

But the stricken look on her face stopped him from reaching it. "...No," She said timidly, "...I'm just an Imperial." Her gaze turned to his axe, and she looked frigthened.

He started to feel horrid, cursing himself for scaring her, and lowered his hand down away from his weapon. And then she added-

"Though I see how you could make the mistake..."

She burst into laughter...and after a second, he did too. "...That's a pretty good one. What's your name, Imperial?"

"Ah," She said, a soft grin coming to rest upon her face. "Celestiana. I know. It's long. You can call me whatever you like. I've gotten Celeste, or Ana, or even...Tia, once."

"I'll come up with something," He promised, rolling the name around in his head. What a strange name. "My name's Farkas."

"...Well then, Farkas," She says, "I would really love it if you would be the model for my male line of Nord clothing in Skyrim. I don't have good measurements for the way Nord men are built, and so I really need..."

"...A model. Wait." He held up his hand. "I'm a warrior. I don't put on fancy clothes and go frolicking around like some sissy milk-drinker."

"...Well, I was going to include in our terms...a vow of secrecy."

"Secrecy?"

"Well," She said, "You can't have people thinking you're a sissy milk-drinker. And I can't have people knowing I didn't come prepared with a men's section. I've managed to acquire standard measurements and clothes for every other race's males, except for the Nords...so...please...it'll be our little secret, and I'll pay you."

And then she pouted.

And then he was a goner.

"Like I could say no to that," He said grumpily, and tried to ignore his wounded dignity as best he could.

She grinned, and they began.

It actually wasn't too bad. She paid him about 50 septims an hour to stand there and let her put clothes on him and pin them up. She also asked him his opinion, on occasion, on the outfits (from a male's point of view, FOR a male's point of view, she'd say). ...He would never admit this to anyone, but it was actually nice, getting out of the armor a few times a week. And there was something about this Imperial, this...Celeste, that made her so pleasant to listen to. Not that they didn't have an even-sided conversation most of the time. But sometimes, he found himself just asking random questions, that he knew would lead to a very long explanation, just so he could listen. The carefree way with which she spoke, the innocence of her stories- untainted. Free. Pure. She had been sheltered somewhere, and he wanted to revel in that idea. That there was still someone out there like this, untainted by the rage and hate of war. As much as he loved battle, as much as he felt at home with a big axe and a pile of dead enemies at his feet, he sometimes needed to be reminded of the people he was fighting for. People like Celeste.

"Where's your family?"

"Oh," She said, "One secund." Her words were muffled by the pins in her mouth- he knew they would be, but despite himself he found himself doing it on purpose, giving her difficulty, just to see the way she handled it: she never faltered even for a second, and spoke only when her mouth was free of the pins. "My parents were scholars, honestly," She said, with a sigh, "And so they wanted me to be. Don't get me wrong. I love a good book just as much as they do. But I couldn't stand to be stifled up in some rusty tower or library somewhere, pouring over the collected 305th translation of Sir Boring the Twenty-Second. I just love to go out and _do_, you know? Make things, craft with my hands. Sew. Draw, design. Take walks, see the wildlife, smell the flowers. They weren't too happy about my tailoring at first, but then they saw how happy this made me. I had a very successful shop in the Capital, and everything was going great."

"So why are you here?"

She stops momentarily...then continues. "Well, they died," She said, matter-of-factly. "And there was nothing left for me there anymore. So I decided, why not travel, see the world? And the cheapest place to come was Whiterun. Maybe if I make enough money, I can open shops in other capitals, too, and just split my time between them."

"I'm sorry to hear about your parents..."

"It's alright. They were old, they lived long lives."

He desperately changed the subject – even though it ended up being to his detriment. "It's not safe for you to travel alone anyway," He said, a little taken aback that she'd even said so in the first place. "A tiny little thing like y—OW!"

"Sorry," She said, in a tone that indicated she wasn't actually sorry at all. "I guess this is a pretty dangerous job, _modeling_. But I thought a big, strong Nord like you could handle a little pinprick that would send a poor thing like me running for cover."

He grunted, now a little grumpy at the woman's actions. But he got the point. It didn't change the fact, however, that the idea of a woman-or anyone, even- traveling alone without the skill or knowledge to protect from bandits, or giants, or, lately-

"Didn't you know that dragons are on the loose?" -was completely crazy. Maybe she didn't know about the dragons, but that didn't excuse...

"Yes," She said, "I saw one."

"And still you want to travel by yourself?" He asked incredulously.

"I never said I'd be by myself. What do you care, anyway? I'm sure you have plenty of other ways to make money than to stand here day after day chatting about danger with an absent-minded tailor."

"Of course I care. Some people..." He sighs. "Some people don't think I'm smart. They get my fist. But you, I like. You treat me with respect and kindness, and not like some big, dumb idiot."

"I'm sure the 50 septims an hour doesn't hurt," she says, and laughs a little.

"You caught me," He says, "Who else would pay me 50 septims just to talk to them a few hours a week?"

"A lonely woman desperate for attention, like me," She says,

"A big dumb mercenary like me," He challenges.

And then it got creative.

"M'aiq the Liar." She retorted, and they both laughed.

"The Steward of Markarth."

"Olvara."

"That guy that never stops screaming about Talos, over in front of Dragonsreach."

"Oh, man, that guy is annoying!" She says, groaning. "I don't even know his name."

"No one does, just that he's annoying," Farkas said. "And imagine, I have to live directly behind that."

"Just make more noise than him. Have really loud, raucous sex, or something?"

"That breaks every single code of conduct we have. Besides..."

"Besides, what?"

There was a pause, a long, awkward silence. Then, he finally said, "...Besides. Sometimes people go out and listen to him."

"Really? Man...I don't care whether you believe or don't, the shouting really gets annoying. I wonder if they do it just to get him to stop yelling for a while."

And so it went.

Though it took him a very long time to catch on - she called upon him just about every day she could, and took her sweet time getting outfits ready- he started to suspect she was drawing this whole 'modeling' thing out. She should have had them done much quicker than she did, but he supposed, looking back on it, he was happy to be with her anyway, and that's why he didn't bring it up.. Inside, he didn't care if the work never got done. Maybe he even preferred it didn't.

He could just spend the rest of his life, he felt, sometimes, sitting in that shop and talking with her while she worked. Watching the way the sunlight played across her face. Hearing her talk about crops grown in her homeland, and strange and exotic things she'd seen. Books she'd read. Nobles she'd worked for. He'd never before met a person that could just refresh him with her very presence. It was almost...akin to the way he felt changing under a full moon. Almost.

But one day...

"...I've got bad news, Farkas," She said, opening her door after he knocked...she looked so crestfallen, he immediately assumed the worst.

"What? What's the matter?" His mind raced, coming up with new worries that would have never crossed his mind. "Your...your husband found out? You've gone bankrupt? You're out of materials? All your pins broke? Wait...you hurt your hands..."

Celeste took one look at him...and then burst into laughter. As soon as she saw the hurt look on his face, though, she took his hands, looking up at him.

"Farkas," She said, "I don't have a husband."

That made him a little too happy, his inner wolf wagging its tail.

"And I suppose it's not necessarily bad news. It just means you'll have to quit your day job."

"Oh...you're done with the outfits!"

She nodded.

That did make him a little sad...but, he squeezed her hands gently. "Well, it makes sense. It's been...what, about a month? Surely you've got a mountain of them by now. And, I'll bet, with the amount of work you put into them, you'll sell out in no time." He grinned a little hesitantly, knowing he wasn't a very good liar.

"...Ah," She blushes softly, and looks away.

"What?" He asks, resisting the urge to turn her face back to him.

"...I suppose I ought to confess."

"Confess what?"

"Well...I enjoyed talking to you so much...that some of the outfits...as soon as you were gone, I'd undo them so I'd have to do it all over the next time I saw you."

He doesn't know what to say to that. He had started to suspect it, but proclaiming his knowledge seemed...inappropriate. After all, then it would indicate that he was okay with that, which might...no. He wouldn't go there. "...But that's counter-productive," He said, finally.

"I suppose...but...I have enough money to pay my own bills for a year if I like. I mostly just do this because I like it." She finally looked back at him, though a faint blush was still on her cheeks.

This time, he does let go of one of her hands. "Wait," He says, "You've got something.." He brings up his palm to cup her face, wiping at the blush on her cheeks with his thumb. "...I can't get it off."

"Hey," She says, "You cut that out." She blushes more, stepping away from him...and hurriedly rubs at her face in a much more frenzied manner than he had, as if wanting to wipe the blush away.

"You know," He said, clearly amused, "It doesn't actually work like that."

"Be quiet," She says grumpily, "You big dumb warrior."

He bursts into laughter. "Maybe I'm a big dumb warrior, and you're a silly wimpy noble, but I'm not the one who's blushing."

"We'll see about that."

"Is that a challenge?" He asked, a little bewildered. The way she had said it really had sounded like...

"Yes!" She lowered her hands, glaring at him. She wore such an expression of determination that Farkas was actually impressed. "By Talos, I will make you blush someday, and you'll rue the day you crossed me!"

She looked so serious, and so adorable, that he couldn't help but break into a grin. "You are so adorable," He said, unable to help himself, and just laughed when she closed the door in his face.

"Wait!" He said, still laughing. "I never got to see the finished product!"  
>"And you won't! Go away!"<p>

This time he did, still laughing. What a woman.


	2. Chapter 2: Unveiling

The store front was incredibly crowded that day...

Mostly...with women.

Farkas felt incredibly awkward.

He turned his eyes to the door, not for the first time wondering if he simply should just turn around and leave. What was he doing in here, anyway? Yes, it was the opening of her shop- and yes, she had hand-written an invitation and sent it by courier to him in Jorrvaskr (though why, he didn't know; perhaps she had thought that he was away). And yes, he hadn't seen her in almost a week, even though he'd come by almost every day...it's not like he missed her, or anything. He was just here for the food, drink, and simple curiosity. For Ysgramor's sake, she stabbed him with needles and griped at him if he moved too much. She ate too little and sat too straight and was far, far too polite...

….She laughed all the time, too, and took great pride and effort into her work. Even though he'd never seen her do it, he was well aware that sometimes she stayed up into the wee hours of the work redoing needlepoint by hand just because one seam was out of line. She made tailoring seem like it was easy, even though it was nothing he could even begin to wrap his head around. All those details, all that cloth...to him, pointless. Cloth did nothing to protect the wearer, and only served for modesty's sake. But when she was working, she made it seem like the most important thing in the world. Like one stitch could mean the difference between life or death.

Belatedly, he realized that the girl-Celeste- approached cloth like Eorland Gray-mane approached steel.

That was it, he thought. He liked her because she reminded him of Eorland. The rest of these people, here, however...

The shop was filled to the brim with everyone in town, dressed in their finest. While Farkas' 'finest' happened to be a white linen top and black cloth slacks that didn't fit right, far too tight on him, everyone else's best seemed to have every inch of them embroidered. Most of them were wearing fancy jewels, and he'd gotten more than one look of, _Oh...why are -you- here...?_ Tonight. Clearly, Celeste had underplayed her party's...formality.

He decided, then, and stood. He'd been here long enough and had taken his share of embarrassment. He had started to leave, when finally, _finally_ he heard her voice.

"Ladies and gentlemen.."

He slowly turned around, towards the direction of the voice...

"Thank you so much for coming..."

….And his eyes widened...

"...To Celestial Cloths. My name is Celeste, and I've just relocated here from Cyrodiil. I want to thank you all for the beautiful, warm welcome! It warms my heart to know I'll be serving such fine people as yourselves..."

Applause. Celeste smiled and looked over the crowd...and when her eyes met his, a full-on blush graced his cheeks. The first thought that crossed his mind, was,

_…And...she keeps her word once it's given. I should have taken her seriously._

She looked absolutely magnificent. He could not comprehend the amount of work that went into that dress- with a bosom-accentuating bodice and a full skirt, the dress was in a pale, pale blue, and embroidered with silver. She wore a silver circlet imbedded with moonstones across her pale forehead. She must have spent all afternoon getting her hair into those perfect waves, and her makeup was professional, accentuating her natural beauty without drawing too much attention. The focus was on the detail of the dress, but he couldn't get his off of her face.

"And besides," He muttered to himself, "There's no dress in the world pretty enough for me to notice it over the woman wearing it."

Especially not this woman. He was no longer paying attention to what she was saying, studying instead the curve of her face, the brightness of her eyes. The way her skin seemed to glow, and she flowered under the attention.

"...She's such a simple-looking girl," Someone said, "But all the better to model the beauty of her dresses, I suppose."

He growled deeply, a guttural, hateful sound, and a momentary hush settled over the crowd. The woman in question who had made the comment started at him fearfully, and at the fear his wolf truly awakened. Had he not had so much practice in controlling his wolf, he knew he would have slaughtered the useless being there and then. This feeling was something he did not understand: this fierce _protectiveness_ that wanted him to kill for the sake of another's _feelings._ The others looked around to figure out where the sound had come from, but Celeste had come prepared.

"And without further ado," She proclaimed, her voice a little louder, "I unveil to you my collection. You will find clothing styles from every province, for every race." She turned- the back of her dress had a sheer bow that somehow managed to be modest, yet tasteful at the same time, but it wasn't the bow Farkas looked at when she turned.

It was about that time, when he realized what he was doing, when he began to feel afraid.

She pulled open the curtains, to reveal the first floor of the shop. "The first floor," She announced, "Is dedicated to the latest fashions in Skyrim. The second floor is Cyrodiil, and all the other provinces have their sections on the third floor. If you wish to purchase anything, I would ask you to please come back tomorrow. Tonight is a night for drinking, celebration, and hospitality. Thank you again for your attending, and please continue to partake of food in drinks...in the designated area."

There was a small collection of laughter, and Celeste's smile almost seemed to catch the light. She gives a small bow, and as people start to wander around the newly unveiled shop, she sees him – although he supposes he is not hard to miss in his current outfit – and walks toward him.

His heart races, and what he feels is fear, the blush creeping across his cheeks. _What is this...why am I afraid of this tiny imperial with no combat skills whatsoever? Why am I afraid of her in a woman with a dress so expensive it probably tarnishes with mere breath, in a room full of witnesses?_

He looks away, and towards the door, then back at her. She looks confused for a moment- but then she is distracted with a woman wishing to complement her work, presumably. As usual, Farkas followed his first instinct. As soon as her gaze was off of him, he turned and left. As soon as he shut the door behind him, he felt a deep relief, the fear vanishing. As soon as the fear vanished, however, he became aware of a deep, driving, painful need.

The need to _change._

Without a second thought, he bolted for the gates.

"Farkas?"

Her voice stopped him only for a minute...

_I can't face her,_ he thought, and then he ran towards the gates again.

"Farkas!" Her voice sounded confused, even hurt, and the tone in her voice killed him, but he used the pain and growing self-loathing to make it to the gates. Hurriedly, he hissed, "Stop her," The the guards, before bolting out of the gates and into the night, in a bid for desperate freedom.

His lupine hearing picked up on the guards doing exactly as he asked- stopping Celeste from going out into the night after him. He did not know if it had been necessary – the guards would generally dissuade any townspeople from going out after dark anyway, especially alone – but he knew that if he asked them they would stop her, no matter what. Being a Companion had its advantages.

Another one of the "advantages" overtook him then, too, his wolf finally ripping its way out of its cage, the change upon him as soon as he was far enough away from city lights. The sensation was always that of exhilaration, adrenaline, freedom, and the most delicious pain- the same kind you got from exercising long and hard, the same soreness afterward that lingers in your bones like a job well done.

He let out a long, hard howl to the night sky, and hunted that night. And perhaps, the next, too. His anger, frustration, and confusion overtook him as he laid waste to any and all of those not of innocent blood that dared to cross him those nights, and had he kept track, he possibly could have collected several bounties upon returning.

But the only thing on his mind was how to forget her, how to stop seeing her, and how to get his emotions back under control- or at least, how to find out what was happening to him and stop it. And that began with letting out all of his frustration on the wilds, bandits, and other unsavory monsters of Skyrim.

He lost track of time. He didn't know how many nights or days he was out there- it felt like an eternity, but then, it always did. He didn't know how long it took to exhaust his wolf-brother, for he seemed strong that night, stronger than Farkas himself, even. The sensation was almost like being new-blood again, the same unfamiliarity and lack of control haunting him, and he indulged it as much as he dared until he dropped to the damp ground under a rock, and curled up, instantly asleep from exhaustion.


	3. Chapter 3: Unraveling

"Kodlak,"

The elder Companion, and current Harbringer, takes one look at Farkas, and commands, "Sit."

Farkas is almost naked- in fact, he would be, except his brother intercepted him on the terrace and forced him into some pants. He is covered in dirt, and dried blood- some his, some not. He sits with a great thump, and the chair groans under the sudden, harsh weight.

Kodlak studies him from his good eye, taking in his state. "You have been running a while, Shield-brother," he remarks, "Something has upset you."

"How long have I been gone?" Farkas manages, though his voice feels foreign to him at the moment, and is more than a little raspy.

"Three days," the elder replies, "There are some that is normal for, such as Aela. But not for you, my son. You are perhaps the calmest out of all of the Circle. Tell me what has happened."

"Kodlak," He says, his voice still strained. He struggles to find the words. "...There is...a girl."

The old man's mouth lifts into a smile. "A girl, eh..."

"No...it's not like that."

"It isn't?" Much to Farkas' detriment, Kodlak seems to be more amused by the sentence.

"We haven't mated. We haven't even...touched. It's just been talking."

"Is this, by chance, the girl you have been sneaking off to see under the cover of some 'special job' for about a month?"

Farkas rubs his face. "...How long have you known about that? Who else knows?"

"Everyone knows, Shield-brother. And we have known for a while. Aela became curious mere days after your announcement, followed you, and saw her."

"...And what did she say?"

"That you were going to see some plain, puny Imperial shop-keeper in town. I remarked that perhaps she had a rather...extensive skeever problem."

Farkas places his head in his hands, groaning.

"...You have been seeing her for over a month. And if I remember correctly, she is the new tailor, the one that had a special opening ball a few days ago."

"Yes."

"...So what is the problem? Did you get into a fight? Did she anger you? No one can use words as a weapon quite like those we care about..."

"I wish she had. It would make more sense."

"Than what?"

"...This."

Kodlak simply waits patiently for elaboration.

"She is just a woman," He says, "An Imperial. No weapon skills to speak of. She is small and talks entirely too much, she cannot hold but two glasses of wine, and she seems to be able to burn the simplest of meals."

"...Oh, really? Such as...?"

"Once..." Farkas can't help but laugh softly, in exasperation and disbelief, but also the memory (though he wouldn't yet admit that to himself). "...I had remarked that I was just on my way to the Bannered Mare to get some food. She said there was no need, she'd be happy to make something for me."

"...And?"

"And I think that were there a medal for failing at something, she'd earn it. She managed to not only fail at boiling water, but also burnt a sweetroll, caught soup on fire, and melted an iron pot over a cooking fire."

Kodlak bursts into laughter, and Farkas joins him after a second. "I cannot," He says, through tears of laughter, "For the life of me figure out how she managed."

"It's a good thing I've picked up a trick or two over the years. She was in tears, but I just couldn't stop laughing. The entire thing was hilarious in how ridiculous it was. She was in no state to go out after that."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah. She was so embarrassed she asked me to leave and locked herself in her room. Like I'm going to leave a mess like that." Farkas finally moves his head out of his hands, and leans back in the chair. "And if she can't make a simple apple-cabbage stew...the likelihood of her being able to get molten metal off the floor without losing a limb is impossible. She was up there a long time, so I managed to clean it all and get a proper meal on the table. When she came down, I'm not sure what surprised her more, that I cleaned up or that I made food."

"What happened then?"

"She just cried. Again. It was..." He hestitated. "...Strange. Very stange. But I suppose that's what...Imperial women do?"

"Are you sure that she was crying because she was unhappy?"

"Partly," Farkas said, surprised that he actually had understood. "I think she thought that she had failed to properly care for her guest."

"So what did you do?"

"Well, I told her to be quiet and come eat the stew before it got cold."

"And there was no fighting...?"

He hadn't thought about it then, but... "...She did exactly what I said, without a word of fuss."

Kodlak grins.

"...It was.." How could he have not thought about that? Of all the bizarre things about this situation, this was the most bizarre. And not only that, he realized, she listened to him _all the time_. "...Not the first time."

"You don't say." Even though he doesn't sound surprised at all.

"No. If I tell her to do something, usually she does it without a fuss, and with a small smile, even. ...I.." He puts his head in his hands again, groaning. "She doesn't even try to punch me."

"I don't believe we had ever discussed this, because it hadn't been necessary up until this point. But there is a classification that every wolf is classified by in a regular wolf pack. The Circle concerns itself not with such things, it is made up of mutual respect and we all view each other as equals. However, in the wild wolf packs, the wolves are ranked by their 'dominance', or their ability to command others and to prove their strength in the fields of battle. Those who are most dominant rise to a leadership position. The wolves who prefer to lead and listen, they are referred to as 'submissive.' I see this in humans as well, though of course humans are not organized this way. Every personality has its own amount of dominance verses submission. And perhaps the most important part of this interplay is this: dominant wolves feel fiercely protective towards the submissive, and the submissive wolves fiercely wish to please their dominant."

Farkas had taken again to reclining, listening to the older man's words. "But Kodlak, she is no wolf. She is simply...a human."

"And is some part of you not also human?"

"But you said wolves..."

"It also exists in humans, but it is not quite as pronounced. I would assume that you have many issues dealing with this that she seems to have no problems with."

"Well...yeah. I went to that party...and I almost killed someone there, Kodlak. I was losing control, I had to get out."

"Why is that?"

"There was some dreadful, weak milk-drinker there...Celeste came down, completely stunning, looking as though she'd spent all afternoon getting ready...and what does this bitch do but say that she's rather 'plain.'"

Kodlak's lips quirk. "I assume you managed not to kill this milk-drinker," He jests lightly.

"No...but before I could stop myself I growled loud enough to make the room go quiet."

"What happened then?"

"...It was almost as if she sensed it," He remembers, rubbing his chin. "She distracted the room by unveiling her new line, which is of course the reason everyone was there in the first place...no one thought anything of it. Neither did I, until I just thought about it..."

"She must have heard the growl, too, then, to choose that time to distract everyone with this."

"I hadn't even thought about it...my head was foggy. Kodlak, I was frightened. It was like the wolf inside me was waking up, and it was raging, angry...it was reminiscent of my first ever Change, when the power and rage was upon me. Only this time, I knew what to do to handle it. I had to Change. But I couldn't contain Brother Wolf much longer. And as soon as I saw her coming towards me...the sensation..the urge to change...the urge to...steal her became almost unbearable, and I just ran for it."

"'Steal' her?"

"...Change, pick her up, take her away from everyone. Preferably somewhere where no one would ever call her plain again and she could sew all she wanted."

Kodlak burst into laughter, and Farkas sighed, knowing how ridiculous the thought was. "So you see my problem. I won't claim to be the most rational or intelligent of people. But this is...even for me...this urge."

"Pup," Kodlak says, clapping him on the shoulder, "You're falling in love. And that's all."

"That's all?" Farkas was wounded. "First of all, I am _not._ If and when I ever do fall in love, it wouldn't be with...with...a _tailor._"

"And why not?"

"Because..."

"Because you had assumed that it would be a strong-willed, dominant shield-sister whom you could share the battlefield with?"

"Yes!" He all but shouted.

"Just because it's supposed to be, doesn't mean that it always will be, Farkas. Remember that. And if she makes you happy, what does it matter whether she swings an axe or threads a needle?"

"How am I to relate to someone who is not a warrior?"

"You seem to be doing fine so far."

Farkas was silent for a moment, contemplating that. Then, he said, "...Well, how do I fix it?"

"Fix it?" Kodlak asked, sounding a little bewildered.

"...Normalize my heartrate...control the protective urges...subdue the constant adrenaline high whenever she's in a crowd..."

"Practice makes perfect. Take her on a date."

"...A date? Kodlak, surely you can't be serious."

"I am serious."

Farkas covers his face with his palm. "...When Vilkas finds out...and Aela.."

"They might tease you, yes. But you might then take the time to remind them that they have yet to find anyone they are interested in."

"...Fine." Farkas stood up, stretching his limbs.

"...By Ysgramor, boy. Not now."

"..Why not?" There is a long, awkward silence...

"...You have not bathed in three days, you smell like death, and you wear nothing but ragged trousers."

"I would think that that would..."

"Farkas. She is not a Nord Shieldmaiden. She is an Imperial shop-keeper."

He blinks. "Right, so.."

Kodlak facepalms. "This is out of my area of expertise. Go shower and dress, at the least. I have a job I need to finish. There really are a lot of them lying around you know...so when you have recovered, come back to work immediately."

"Of course, Harbringer. Thank you..."

He waved a hand dismissively, then went to grab his axe and prepare for his latest job.

...Now, then. To find a female to ask advice of. He scratched the back of his head. He supposed Aela was better than nothing. Perhaps he could ask that widow in the market, Camilla, or whatever her name was.

"Farkas."

Speaking of the woman, there she was. "Aela," He says. "Come. I was just about to shower, and I wished to seek your counsel on something."

She stands up- she had perviously been leaning on the wall outside of the showers. "I assume this has something to do with where you've been?" She sniffs. "...You smell of blood, death, and the hunt. I commend you."

"That's what I said, but Kodlak told me to take a bath."

"It is probably a good idea. Most do not like the smell."

Farkas shrugged and headed into the showers. Aela followed behind him. They were both quite used to the other's nudity by now; clothes did not tend to Change with one's form, and therefore, were often lost in the process. Farkas turned on the water, and thought of how to word his question, while waiting for the water to warm.

"It has been a while since you went running for three days. I don't believe you were even gone that long on your first Change."

"No," He says, "I wasn't. This seems to be a month of firsts."

"What caused it?"

"A woman," He says, honestly.

Aela smirks.

Farkas held out his hand to test the water. Deciding it was warm enough, he stepped in, and watched the water run black as it blasted away the dirt, brambles, and dry mud off his skin.

"The Imperial, from town."

"Yes."

"Vilkas had said that was it, but I said you'd never go for a woman like that. I suppose I was wrong."

Farkas was not surprised that his brother had realized before he had. His brother had the uncanny ability to predict inconvenient truths that he himself did not wish to face. "What else did he say?"

"That on the contrary, that kind of woman was exactly the kind you liked."

Farkas looked out at Aela in astonishment. "He did?"

"Mm. He did. But he did not elaborate further."

Farkas ran a hand over his face, and roughly grabbed the soap, scrubbing at his face and body a little harder than necessary. There is a silence, then,

"So...what did you wish my counsel on?"

"You are not going to mock me?"

Aela shrugged. "You love who you love, Shield-brother. She makes you happy and that is all that matters. Besides. If this ends up more..permanent, there's no reason I couldn't teach my new sister a thing or two about fighting."

The deep, warning, guttural growl that escaped Farkas' throat surprised the both of them. Farkas looks at Aela, aware of the angry look on his face.

"...Your eyes are yellow. This is indeed a problem. Why does this idea offend you so?"

"To train her to fight would be...to change her. She is not a fighter. That is not who she is. And she should not have to be. There are..." He looks away, shaking his head, and calms himself. "..There are too little like her in the world. You can look at her and tell she's never split a drop of blood in her life."

Aela remains quietly fascinated. "I have never seen you like this, Farkas. It is...an interesting experience."

"Yeah," He says sarcastically, "Interesting. Try frustrating. If she were a Nord, I'dve taken her to my bed and the Temple of Mara already. But this..."

"Is a different sort, yes."

"...I don't even know how to go about this, sister."

"Shampoo," She reminds him, "...You've been scrubbing your forearm long enough."

So he had. He puts the soap back on the rack and reaches for the shampoo instead, grumbling as he works it through his hair.

"...I can't begin to tell you," She said, "...My best advice would be to bring her the head of a mammoth."

"...A mammoth?" He asks, clearly bewildered.

"Aye," She says, "A feat near impossible, wouldn't you say? But not for warriors of our caliber."

He nodded. That made sense. "The head of a mammoth it is then. But...then this shower will have been useless."

"You don't have to do it tonight. You honestly should rest, after a run like that."

"I need to see her. I need to explain."

"...You ought to leave the truth of your identity out. Preferably forever."

"I can't keep it from her forever."

"Then at least until you are sure you want to marry her, and that she'll say yes."

He sighed. "Fair enough." He washed the wretched-hair soap out, and stepped out of the bath, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around his waist. "And...I have an excuse to see her, anyway."

"What might that be?"

"I don't have any casual clothes anymore, and she's the only tailor in town."

Aela walked over to him and put her hand on his shoulder. "A mammoth," She says, nodding. "No woman could say no to that."

She left without a word, Farkas watching her go.

Yes. A mammoth it would be. But first, he owed her an explanation for his behavior.

He headed up towards his room to dress.


	4. Chapter 4: Apologizing

A/N: Wow! Thank you so much to everyone for subscribing and commenting! Comments and or subscriptions are really what keeps me motivated and it always makes me feel wonderful to know that people are enjoying reading my stories. If you have the time, I would appreciate a comment or two so I can make sure I know what my readers like and don't like.

I'm also available for discussions or general nerding out via private messaging if that so suits you!

Thanks again, and without further ado...Chapter 4: Apologizing.

Edit: Made a few minor changes...made some silly mistakes. That's why you don't write when you're sleep deprived! Anyway, fixt. :)

It took him far longer to find a suitable armor set than he should have. He picked the least fancy, lightest set he had, and donned that, wondering if he also might bring a peace offering. He decided he would bring dinner, seriously doubting that Celeste had even bothered replacing her old pan. Knowing her, she probably would just stock her cabinets with foods that didn't need to be prepared...carrots, apples, leeks. Salted meat. He suddenly felt a strange twinge of worry. Did she get enough vitamins?

He stopped in his tracks. Did he really just ask himself that? He shook his head and told himself not to be ridiculous. His desire to see her, however, was so strong, that he just decided to pick up a meal from the Bannered Mare and take it over.

And so he did, and nervously knocked a few times on the shop door...it wasn't open, right? It was too early? How early was it? Not too early...the sun was up..right? Maybe? …Why was he suddenly nervous..?

It must have been too early. Oh, she opened the door all right...but it was obvious she'd just crawled out of bed. Her hair was in curlers, she wore a simple blue robe and nothing else, and she was rubbing at red, blurry eyes. Farkas took a quick peek at the skyline...the sun had just barely risen.

Ooops.

"...Celeste. I'm...sorry. ...Sorry for coming so early...and..uh..." It was hard for him not to notice the way the silk clung to her body and the way she seemed to be wearing nothing else. It was incredibly distracting to say the least. "...And...about the party...I can.."  
>Then, all of a sudden, she was wide awake. "FARKAS!" She exclaims, as if she just figured out who it was. "Oh, Divines! By the nine! Why didn't you warn me before you came?" Without even waiting for an answer, she bolted up the stairs.<p>

Blinking, he came in, shutting the door behind him. "Because it was still dark?" He called up. "I...wanted to surprise you, but I didn't realize it was quite this early." He had no idea what she was doing up there, but it was a LOT of crashing, banging, clanging, and drawer slamming. He sat the two breakfasts on the table and debated whether to follow her or to unpack the utensils.

About the time he heard her muttering to herself, is the time he decided to follow her. He took easy steps up the stairs, trying not to be too loud, but not too quiet at the same time. He had never been upstairs before, much less to her bedroom.

Her bedroom...

He smirks a little. Maybe this would be easier than he thought, maybe...

...Or maybe her bedroom was actually a complete disaster. He wasn't even sure she managed to sleep on the bed.

He found her bedroom without too much trouble. Even without his lupine hearing, she was making quite a bit of noise; and she would obviously took the attic as her room, given that the other floors were dedicated to her shop. He had expected something neat, tidy, and feminine. But the room looked more like a hurricane had hit. There were strips of cloth, fringes, frills, bows, and he didn't know what else all over the bed. He could see what side she slept in, at least, but she had absolutely no room to stretch. Did she curl up in a ball while she slept? The floor was covered in sketches, advertisements, order forms, letters. And to the right of the room was a weird contraption with a bunch of string and a dangerous looking metal spike on it. The room still had the wonderful smell of her, but it also had the smell of glue, metal, silk, and cotton, which he really took away from her smell, the smell of passion, hard work, and something light and airy.

He did his best to avoid it, but he still ended up stepping on some letters or forms or whatever they were; he wasn't paying attention.. Peeking into her personal bathroom, where she was, he saw that she had taken the curlers out, and her hair now bounced in curly ringlets. He admitted it was cute, but he found himself wishing for her normal, thick, straight hair. He didn't like it when she tried to change herself.

She was putting some weird device near her eyes that he'd never seen before. "What is that?" He asked, and while he thought she surely would have heard him coming, she jumped and slipped. He only had to step forward a little to catch her, and found that her bathroom was in the same sate of disarray as her bedroom. She had slipped on a stray soap bar.

"This place is a dump, Celeste," He says, with a little bit of annoyance, "You could hurt yourself on all this stuff. If you needed help cleaning up you could have just asked.."

"...Farkas..."

He blinked, looking down at her. She was so small, and so light, that he'd almost forgotten he was holding her, preoccupied instead with his scolding. But now, looking down into her innocent blue eyes, he found his breath catching...and it was impossible for him to look away now. "What?" He asked; though his sternness had lost its edge, he was still set on griping at her for putting herself in harm's way like that. "You could have fallen and hit your head on the stone tile. And then I'd have to break down your door to find you before you bled out. Then you'd have a door repair bill."

"...You wouldn't even know if I fell," She protested, pouting defiantly.

"I would too."

"How?"

"I'd come check on you and smell it."

"...Smell it?"

Ooops. He'd slipped up. It's a good thing he was a morning person; a response came to him quickly. "Yeah," He says, "I've got a real nose for trouble."

She smiled softly. "Yeah," She said, "By the way...you lost the bet."

"Bet?..."

"I made you blush. At the party."

He had forgotten about that. Had it been a bet? He didn't know, nor care, really. "So you did. You didn't have to try quite so hard, but the final product was breathtaking."

"I've been working on that dress for months," She said, beaming with pride. "I'm glad you liked it."

"Not the dress, woman," He said, lifting her up. He couldn't help but notice that he'd stopped her before she had the chance to put on makeup- and honestly, he preferred it that way. Makeup covered up her freckles, and her smell, both of which he was a fan of. "You." He carried her towards her bed, very slowly.

"Me..?" She seemed to not notice it "..But the main focus was the dress. The details, the embroidery..."

"I couldn't even tell you what color it was. Probably your favorite one."

"...Well, yes..." She seemed confused, like his statement was a foreign concept. "But really, there's no way I could have outshone that dress."

He had to stop to glare down at her properly.

"...Why are you..." She stopped, blinking, then gasped a little. "Hey, your eyes..."

"...What about my eyes?"

She reached up, touching his cheek softly. Instinctively, he nuzzled her palm. The female in his arms became even more confused. "...They're turning gold. ...Am I hallucinating?"

"No," He said honestly. "They do that sometimes." Seeing she hadn't moved her palm away, he kissed it softly, savoring the feel of her skin beneath his lips.

"...Uhh..."

He could sense her heart rate picking up. His senses had sharpened for some reason, and he noticed her body temperature rising as well, just slightly. He looked down at her, reluctantly moving his mouth away from her hand. He checked her face for signs of fear- and they were everywhere.

That sure made his inner wolf calm.

"You are afraid," He says, feeling a bit wounded.

"...I don't mean to be," She says, apologetically.

"Well," He says, then grins lopsidedly, hiding his disappointment. "You don't have to be afraid. I brought you breakfast, and I can go if you like. I'll just leave it down on the table for when you're hungry." He is reluctant to lay her down on the bed and leave. He'd lay her down on the bed for other things, but not when he was afraid. Not until she was comfortable.

She didn't answer, she just looked up at him with those eyes, the slight smell of fear only furthering his agitation. Some part of his wolf wanted to lay her down and keep going...some part of the wolf liked it. A chance to show his potential mate his gentility. And, before he could stop himself, he found himself laying her on the bed.

Her fear skyrocketed- he would be able to sense it now, even if he weren't a werewolf. So then, she really wasn't ready...

He leaned down and kissed her gingerly on the forehead. "Celestiana," he said, "Please...do not be afraid of me..." Why was she afraid, anyway? Was it the armor? "...I don't have any real clothes, I was actually hoping to buy some from you. But I'll leave, and come back later. ...I just wanted to apologize for skipping out on the party...for running away from you."

With great effort, reluctance, and regret, he straightened up and turned away from her, her barely clad body, and her wonderfully enticing scent. He forced himself to start to walk away- but again, he felt that hand on his wrist, gripping probably what she might consider to be 'hard', and he considered to be, 'sort of noticeable.'

He looked over his shoulder, his eyes a deep gold by now.

"...Why did you run?" She asked quietly, and it pained him to look at her, so fragile, delicate, and hauntingly beautiful, laying on that bed.

"...Because," He says, honestly, "...You frighten me."

It took a long second for that to set in...she blinked several times...and then burst into laughter.

His inner wolf couldn't help but growl as laughter animated certain parts of her anatomy.

"...What?" He asked, trying desperately to keep his mind clean, clear...away from all he wanted to do to her right now.

"You? Afraid of me? A tiny, weak Imperial woman?"

"Tiny and weak you may be, but I won't lie. I'm interested in you. You're intelligent, creative, perceptive, driven..." He hesitated. "...And an amazing shade of beautiful I've never seen before. The women I know, they are all Nord; tall, strong, muscular, dominant. Warriors. But you put them all to shame with your innocence and passion. It...is a hard thing to handle, sometimes."

Celeste had dropped his wrist about halfway through his sentence, and then proceeded to turn a very interesting and bright shade of red. She paused for a long time after he finished.

Farkas stood there stoically. He had felt that his feelings were already known to the world; there was no shame to telling her himself. "...Have a good morning, Celeste," He said, noting how much her heart-rate had sped up, how she was sweating heavily. He was leaving as much for his sake as for hers. He didn't know how much longer he could hold himself back. He turned his back, but this time, before he could walk away, Celeste hugged him from behind, and he let out a low, pained groan, now starting to feel real, physical pain at the situation.

"I like you too. ...That's why I came to you. I could have asked anyone else in town, but there was always something about you...I knew you couldn't be as scary as you looked. I...why are you groaning?"

"You are..." He was exasperated by now. "You are almost naked, Celeste, and laying in a bed. It is incredibly hard for me to be a gentleman right now. If you would just..."

"..Look at me."

"That's just going to make it worse..."

"...It's okay." She let go of his back.

He turned to face her. "Celeste," He says, his breath coming heavily now. "I need to go. I need..."

But when she tugged at the rope on her robe, he was on her in an instant- faster than he meant to be. He was on her before he had even realized he made the move, sending papers and material and who knows what else flying everywhere.

Celeste whimpered, it seemed to him, quite a long time later, as he had managed to get his weapon off and a safe enough distance away, as well as the top of his armor, before she'd even showed signs of realizing it. He didn't know how fast he had been moving, but it was obvious that he had done these things before she even noticed that he had propped himself above her, his breathing labored. "I wanted you," He said, his voice strained, "I always wanted you...and I warned you. I've been warning you for the past five minutes."

Celeste frowned up at him. "...I'm n-not...it's not like.."

He moved his lips to her neck and kissed it gently, trying desperately to get her to relax. Her fear had gone up exponentially, and he wasn't sure that she wanted...what she thought she wanted. Her skin was so soft and smooth beneath his lips, and despite himself, he liked the taste of her soap, some sort of strange fancy floral thing he'd never look twice at in a store. When he felt her soft fingertips trace the muscles of his torso, he felt them twitch in response, and, unable to hold back anymore, he felt a defiant tightening of his groin.

He groaned softly. "Celeste," He panted into her ear, "I could hurt you..."

"I trust you," She says softly. "...I know you won't hurt me."

"Not on purpose," He growled. "Never on purpose. Please...tell me if I am. I've never..."

"...Slept with an imperial?"

"...Exactly. Slept with a small woman." Throughout this, he had kept kissing her neck in between words, trailing down her collarbone, and relishing in the flush in her skin, the flutter in her heart rate...the telltale smell of her arousal.

"You don't have to talk anymore," She said gently.

So he didn't. Not with words, anyway.

[[Will write this out in the next chapter- that is one of the reasons this fan fic is rated M, the other reason is for later violence and strong language. You are free to skip it if you like, but it will have a lot more dimension than simple smut, I promise you. :)

Please comment and feel free to do some predictions! :O ]]


	5. Chapter 5: Consummation

A/N: **I do not want any criticism on this chapter. Normally I welcome **_**constructive**_** criticism, but I spent about 6 hours writing this and I took great pains in how to proceed. It was **_**not **_**meant to serve as smut or erotica, but merely a part of the story that happens to involve sex. The things that happen during this time become important to the plot, however, this chapter can be skipped as those things will be summed up later on.**

**Edit: Fixed a whole mountain of errors. My goodness. I have no idea how I missed all of those!**

Fixed a lot of little errors in Ch 4, silly little mistakes, the kind that get made when you haven't slept in wayyy too long. I'm really overwhelmed, in a good way. It seems that every time I open my inbox (and I check it several times a day) I have a new subscriber. So thank you so much, to all of you, and I will do my best to keep updating regularly. 3

Here's your last warning, folks: this chapter is about sex. Intimate sex. So this is your last chance to escape...

He heard the ripping of her robe as he removed it, though he could have sworn he was being gentle. It was a flimsy thing, he told himself, not his fault.

When he took his hands to her body, her flesh soft and warm beneath his fingertips, he felt more and more dazed, as though he didn't know what was happening to him. He ignored this feeling and proceeded as usual, leaning down to trail his wet tongue and kisses down her torso, upon her breasts. He reveled in her arched back, her whimpers, her wriggling underneath him, the taste of her flesh in his mouth. Hell, even the texture and shape of her nipples was pleasing to him- this was all so bizarre. He'd had sex before, plenty of times. He'd even had sex with women who meant something to him; had a girlfriend here or there that didn't work out in the end. But this...this was something different entirely. It was almost as though he'd found an amazing treasure he'd never even dreamed of.

"...Hurts," She finally managed, "...Just...ease up a little? Just a little?" Celeste's voice was strained.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't perfect, he thought. In time, it would be. He'd get the hang of having to be...'gentle' in his affections. He switched his attention to her other breast and, as requested, was gentler with his mouth. With his free hand, he trailed down the curves of her body, pressing and prodding to try and find any spots- ticklish, sweet, or otherwise. He wanted to map out her body, every inch of it, by touch, taste, and sight. A thought hit him, and he stopped, his hand a little more than halfway up her thigh. He released her breasts, both from mouth and hand. Instead, he looked down at her, still propped up (perhaps not the best idea to lay all of his weight upon her; he was rather heavy, and she was rather...not. Besides, it was certainly no strain upon him to hold up his own weight). He couldn't help but grin at the blush on her cheeks, the sweat, and the way she opened her eyes slowly to watch him, clearly in as much of a fog as much as he was.

"...Wh-what?" She asked, and he could smell it- that fear again.

He wouldn't have it. He leaned down and kissed her full on the mouth, deep...perhaps he was a little harsh at first, but he remembered to be gentle almost immediately and lightened up. She kissed him back much faster than he expected, and crossed her arms around his back, trying to pull him closer. He obliged, letting his chest press against hers, feeling his inner wolf let out a yip of happiness at the feeling of her body against his. "I can't believe," He growled into her mouth, his voice husky and deep, much deeper than usual, "That I haven't kissed you yet. Do you see what you do to me?" Before she could answer, he kissed her again, and, without a cue, took her lower lip into his mouth, sucking on it. He probably was going crazy, because he tasted honey, of all things, upon her mouth.

She whimpered and he released her lip, pressing his forehead and body into hers. He belatedly realized that he was still wearing pants. "You taste like honey."

"...I..um...put it on my lips every night before I go to sleep. To keep them soft and...moisturized."

He didn't have an answer for that, so he kissed her again, with one arm reaching down to try and get his pants off, the other still keeping his weight off her. He growled a little, unable to do it with one hand, and felt a burst of frustration at the situation. He did not want to break skin contact.

The rage caught his attention, through the fog. He stopped completely, freezing. He even ceased his kisses.

"What? What is it?" Celeste pulled back from him, and took his face in her hands, making him look her in the eyes.

That brought him to his senses some- getting a good look at her. He felt his wolf calm again, the rage passing. "Just...thought I might be going a little too fast," a half-truth, which he had gotten good at. Every member of the Circle was also a wolf, and wolves can smell a lie.

She ran her thumbs over his cheeks, and he closed his eyes, taking a moment to just relish the skin contact, the smells. The moment.

"Maybe a little," She says kindly, "...But believe it or not...I...I've felt this way for a long time, too. I'm still...having a hard time believing that this is...real."

He opened his golden eyes to watch her. Her freckles were so pronounced through the blush that he smiled. "Why didn't you say something earlier...?"

"Oh, I couldn't," She said, and looked away from him.

"Hey, hey." He moved her face back gently to look at him. "And why not? Why are you embarrassed?"

"...It's just, Farkas...that..."

"That what?" He was a little impatient, and would soon feel irritated if she said what he thought she was going to say.

"..." She wilted a little under that look, and he sighed.

"...I'm sorry. But don't you dare tell me something...self-depreciating."

He'd have to thank Vilkas for teaching him that depreciating word, later. Perhaps he'd leave out the part about using it during sex, though...

"...But...wait. Self-depreciating?"

"...Yes?" He'd used it right, right? Oh, man. If he had messed up the definition, now of all times...

She started to giggle, and now it was his turn to be embarrassed, a slight blush coming to his cheeks. She leaned forward and kissed him firmly, and he moved his hands back to either side of her, leaning back into the kiss. He felt her hands go to his pants, unbuckling them, and he stopped kissing her for a second. Before he can ask, though, she gives him his answer,

"...Those have to be uncomfortable by now...and besides, I'm tired of being the only one naked in here."

He chuckled and roughly moved his hands to her hips. Sliding his hands back behind her, he gripped her ass and pulled her groin into his, groaning at the contact. She whimpered and wiggled in his hands. "Well," He said, all this time his lips never more than a millimeter away from hers, "Maybe I'll just tease you a bit, then..I don't think I'll ever get tired of the little whimpers you make...so cute, just like a little cat."

"Hey," She protested, but he kissed her again, grinding into her. He had to admit that it felt great to him too, relieving some pressure without the main event happening too soon. And he loved the feel of her ass in his hands, soft and squishy, sensations he hadn't felt from the other women he'd bedded. No, he'd take his time with Celeste, he decided, and started to kiss down her chin and the middle of her collarbone. He'd relish the softness of her body, her delicate moans, the...pliant behavior. She didn't even fight him for dominance, simply letting him do as he pleased, and he enjoyed the feeling so much more than he ever thought he would.

He grinded into her a few more times, and felt her growing softer beneath him, more aroused. It was becoming hard for him to continue, though he wondered how far he could take her submission. It certainly wasn't an aspect of himself he'd ever explored before. He hadn't even _heard_ of dominance until yesterday. Perhaps it was better to take things slow...stick to what he knew worked, and save the experimentation for later...experimentation he would be all too eager to do. So long as she was willing. He turned his gaze from her collarbone to her face, straightening his torso, his hands still holding her hips into his. She had turned even redder now, and looked almost strained, her chin tilted back and her eyes shut tightly, as though she were...

...Enduring.

He found that interesting.

"Too much?" He asked, with a small smirk. "Ready to ask for mercy yet?"

She opened her eyes into slits, and glared at him, pursing her lips.

He grinned at her. "No? I guess I'll have to move onto other tactics, then."

He loved this. She was small, yes. But he was increasingly learning that, small and submissive she may be, but she was still full of fire. She got scared easily, but there was a difference between being afraid and being a coward. Everyone was afraid at some point. It was what you did in the face of the thing that frightened you that made you brave. And to have her trust him with her body this way...when he could have easily hurt her...killed her even, but she probably didn't think about that...well. That was probably the best gift of all.

"You're all talk," She said, though she was still breathing heavily, "I just figured you were taking your time for your sake. I know it takes you men forever to accomplish anything."

He burst out laughing, and he gave her rear a gentle smack. "Rude!" He said, but he was still laughing at her audacity. He leaned down and gave her a deep kiss, pressing his body fully into hers once more. He didn't kiss her for too long, though. Teasing or not, he wouldn't make her wait forever...at least not this time.

He switched positions. Breaking away from the kiss, he moved down between her legs.

"Hey, what-"

He silenced her by opening his mouth, and licking her soft, wet vagina slowly, dragging his tongue along the most sensitive part of her anatomy.

The deafening shriek of surprise and complimentary jerk was about the funniest thing he'd ever seen. He couldn't continue from laughing so hard. He almost doubled over, holding his stomach as he laughed.

He was vaguely aware of her scooting away from him as much as she could.

"Hey now.." He grabbed her ankle, still chuckling. "Where do you think you're going?"

She just looked at him, still looking so adorably startled. Her expression was so ridiculous he started laughing again.

"...Stop laughing," She says miserably.

"I'm sorry, it's just...it was so cute. You've never had that before?"

"No," She said, and buried her face in her hands.

He finally stops laughing, though he still has a grin on his face. He let go of Celeste's ankle, and moved close to her, moving her hands gently away from her face. "Hey. Hey."

She honestly looked like she might have started to tear a little from the embarrassment, and he felt a pang of regret. "None of that.." He said quietly, and wiped at her eyes gently with his thumb. "I promise you that every second of that laugh was because of how cute you were. I'm not trying to embarrass you."

He doesn't make her look at him this time. He lets her look at him on her own time, which she does after several long minutes, albeit reluctantly and indirectly, up through her lashes. "I won't do it again if you don't want me to," He said, pressing his forehead to hers.

"It's not that, it's just...it...the sensation...it's like nothing I've ever felt before. In an...amazing way. But still so weird."

It finally occurred to him that she was younger than he was. Not by a whole lot, but younger than she acted, and younger than he had guessed. At the same time, she was still at an age which he would have expected her to have a little more...experience. It didn't matter to him, not at all, but it was one of those surprising little details he was collecting more and more of every day. "...Have you ever done this before?" He asked, careful to keep his tone neutral.

"Yes," She said, "But it was a waste of time, nothing like this at all. He wasn't...he barely touched me, and it was passionless. This...you. There's a lot more here. I'm scared...but...it's a good kind of scared. You make me feel safe."

"Because you _are_ safe," He asserted, "And I don't know what kind of man could have fun with the kind of sex you described. It seems like more of a chore. I assume he wasn't a Nord."

"No," She said, "Imperial."

"That explains _everything_! Hey, I know.."

"Hmm?"

"From now on. You're only allowed to have sex with me. Deal?"

She laughed, and he grinned, kissing her nose, which she wrinkled in response.

"Okay," She replied, "But, I think I got a boyfriend today."

"That's alright, how about you just date me instead?"

"Okay," She says, blushing slightly.

He kissed her, gently pressing her back down into the bed. "Relax..." He said, and his golden eyes searched her own. "...And don't worry. About anything."

"But-"

He put a finger on her lips and gave her a stern look. "What did I just say?"

She sighed, and nodded once, though she did not not look too happy about it. He smirked at her, and moved his finger off her lips, instead bringing it -slowly – down to her vagina. He explored her with his fingertips, and she wriggled beneath his hands, biting her lip. She kept her face turned away from him, but that was all right. So long as he could see- and hear-her reactions.

This was a little awkward to him; certainly, she was a new experience, but not necessarily a bad one. And her behavior definitely wasn't a surprise. Somehow he had pegged her for being inexperienced, though she was even less experienced than he had thought. He didn't much care about that, though. She would become more comfortable with it as time went on. In the meantime he would be patient. He absently kissed her navel. This wasn't truly about the sex, it never was. It was about this inexplicable, overpowering desire to be close to her, and to make her happy.

She was easy to please, too. He found that simply by rubbing the right area (just about anywhere) she came very close to climax, and he debated whether to bring her there yet or not. He was pondering, and his actions might have stopped momentarily...but she noticed, however brief the delay, and gave him an expression that he could have sworn stopped his heart.

All her desperation and desire showed in her face, pooling in her fathomless eyes and on her lips, the innocent pout. And when she spoke, he felt the world fall out from under him, though it was only word, so delicately and quietly...begged.

"Please..."

At that moment he felt the wolf inside of him move, and nothing at that moment was more important than to grant that request. He took his hand and stuck two fingers in his mouth to moisten them, then stuck them inside of her without warning. She gasped and arched her back, closing her eyes, and he resumed the rubbing motions with his other hand, watching her carefully.

She bucked herself into his hand, moaning. He started to move his fingers roughly in and out of her vagina, slowly at first, then speeding up gradually. He made sure not to thrust too hard, yet, fast enough to simulate her. He wished he could draw it out longer; to keep watching her expression, to listen to her moaning and whimpers, and to keep feeling her throbbing beneath his fingertips, but even if he could have, he wouldn't have done that to her. He would just have to give her more, after this one. That's all.

It didn't take much, or much time- that was something else he wasn't used to. She was a lot more sensitive than he would have known, and as such, climaxed far earlier than he would have expected. A little surprised, he instinctively pressed upwards inside of her as soon as she noticed, and gave her clitoris a soft pinch. She got a lot louder and he actually worried for a moment that someone outside might hear her...but then he smirked, in satisfaction. Let them come. It would be worth it.

It took several seconds for her to come down from the high, and he pulled his hands out and off of her, getting off of the bed and standing up. He ran his eyes over her body, savoring the sight of her recovery. Absently, without even thinking about it, he wiped his hands on a stray cloth and tossed it to the side, before positioning himself over her again and kissing her neck, taking a deep breath and taking in the intoxicating perfume of her in this state. Inside the wolf howled in satisfaction, and called out for his own release.

Just like the first time, before he even knew what was happening, he heard a worried,

"Wait! Stop!"

He blinked, looking down. It seemed he had positioned himself for intercourse already, though he didn't remember doing it. Worry filled his face, and he backed away from her.

"No, no. I just..need a minute. ...I can't recover from that, that quick."

He rubbed his face. "Of course. Sorry. It's been a while." Yet another lie with the truth. It _had_ been a while, but that wasn't why he had backed away from her. He had truly begun to worry about his control. While he knew his wolf and believed he wouldn't hurt her on purpose, he also didn't want to take the risk. There was a very good reason that the balance between man and wolf had to be maintained, and he could never forgive himself if he lost control. "Forgive me..." He muttered.

"...Of course," She said, and her tone was so understanding and sincere, it damn near broke his heart. There was a pause, and then a small, "I'm ready."

Of course it would be like this. He had been ready every moment up until now, to take her and make love to her until he fell over from exhaustion, but now he was afraid. Now _he_ needed a moment.

_Divines, guide me_, he prayed silently, _Hircine, give me control over your boon..._ Even if he could have backed out now, he wouldn't have. Not with her sitting there, not with all the build up, and not with how long he had waited for this moment. Scared as he was, the overpowering desire, the _need_ for this...he crawled on top of her, studying her beautiful, fragile face. He cupped her cheek in his hand, and, just as he had earlier, she turned her mouth into his palm and kissed it. He smiled, the sensation giving his palm a pleasant tingle.

He just couldn't hurt her. He couldn't...and she was so much smaller than him, at least half his size. What if he didn't manage to roll off her in time after his release? He'd crush her under him.

….That was it!

His facial expression must have changed, because so did Celeste's.

"..What?" She asked, worriedly. "What are you planning-"

He grabbed her gently and in one movement, rolled over, pulling her on top of him. "This," He said with a grin. "I don't have to worry as much about hurting you this way. And I get a great view." He groped her ass, pushing his fingertips deep and massaging, and she let off a soft moan and went limp on top of him.

"...Feels good," She murmured against his chest.

"I know something that'll feel even better..." He said, a sneaky grin on his face.

She looked up at him, and smiled sheepishly. "I'll believe it when I see it," She chided, spunky even now.

"I don't know about see it," He said, moving his hands from her ass to her hips. He lined up them up and held her groin just above his. "But you'll feel it alright..."

She blushed a deep shade of red, and he laughed, loving the effect his words have on her. "Hold yourself there for a minute," He instructed, and let go of her hips. She did. He smelled that sharp tang of fear, but at this point, there would be no hesitating. He guided himself into her...well...started to.

She bit her lip and made a muffled noise...and it didn't sound like pleasure to him.

He blinked at her. "..What?"

She shook her head, so he went slower, trying to ease her down on him. The sensation felt nice, but it'd be better once he was completely inside her. Though at this point, he was fairly sure what the problem was.

"Divines, you're small, Celeste," He said, wincing a little bit.

"I am NOT." She said indignantly. "YOU are huge."

"I am not," He replied, taken aback. "I'm just average."

"For a _Nord,_" She pointed out.

"...Oh. Just...try to relax a little. Come on." He feels desperate at this point. "...You can fit a baby in there, right? I'm smaller than a baby."

"...Did you really just reference..."

He groaned, and let his head fall back onto the pillow in frustration. "...I'm trying, Celeste. Cut me some.."

Then she laughed, and he blinked, confused.

"Paybacks," She said with a smirk.

"You..." He scowled, and she just laughed harder. He sighed, unable to stay angry with her. However...with a grin, he lowered her the rest of the way onto him, and let out a deep sigh of relief. "Finally..."

She made a noise. "...I guess I deserved that," She said, wincing. "...by the Nine. Give me a second."

He covered his face with his palm, grinning lopsidedly. "Okay," He said.

Again, he was stricken with the awkwardness of the situation and entire relationship. He couldn't help but crack up as his brand new girlfriend tried to "adjust" to his size, which largely seemed to consist of wiggling and making faces.

"Don't laugh," She said, pouting.

"I just can't help it," He said, and laughed more. "It looks so funny. This entire thing.."

"I know," She said...and she laughed too. "It's supposed to be easier than this. Natural and sexy...not...you know. Surprise! My vagina is too small for you!"

"Your vagina is NOT too small for me, dear," He said, "It is exactly the right size, because you are perfect."

She blinked, slowly turning red, and turned her gaze down to what would normally be the floor- but, in this case, it was his abdomen. She traced the outlines of his muscles with her fingertips, and he made a soft noise. Gentle as it was, he loved the feeling.

"You're sweet, Farkas."

"Nah," He said, and pulled her into him, holding her close. "You take all the time you need."

He realized he meant it as he closed his eyes. It was uncomfortable for the moment, desiring simulation and getting none, but there was a deep, intimate satisfaction in this alone. Sex was sex. It was a necessity some days, and a gift from the gods others, but this...holding Celeste, having her naked body on his, and being inside of her...there was a deep satisfaction in this alone that stand-alone sex, no matter how great it was, could ever match. He let out a deep sigh and kissed her head several times, taking in the smell of her.

"...We haven't even had real sex yet, and this sex is better than the last real sex I had."

"I don't know. Is this technically sex?"

"I don't know, and I don't care. I could lay like this forever, listening to your heart beat."

Now _he _was the one that blushed again. He ran his hands down her back, exploring her curves. She whimpered a little as he touched the small of her back.

"Ah-hah," He said, and grinned.

"No, wait-"

But he didn't. He knew the difference between a real protest and a fake protest- and that 'No, wait-' was the 'No, wait-' of a woman that _wanted_ to be taken advantage of.

He dug his fingertips into the spot that made her whimper, and she arched her back, groaning. He smiled, and softly, tentatively started moving his hips as he massaged her. He heard her making soft noises, adjusting still, so he kept the movements slow and gentle, even though it was incredibly hard for him to do so. His wolf was stirring again, urging him to speed up, go faster, be rougher - to seek relief.

"It's not...so bad," She managed, "I'm getting used to it, it's...an entirely new sensation."

"Yeah?" He kissed her on the head, lingering there and using her smell to distract him- trying to remind his wolf of the need to protect her, which was vastly more important than immediate relief.

"...A good thing," She managed breathlessly, "Once I got used to it...it feels amazing. It's almost like..."

He moved his hips a little faster, gritting his teeth, _trying_ to keep stay steady, but his patience was almost gone. He knew he'd be properly unnerved by that fact later...but not until _after_ he was finished. Not until after he was finished _several_ times.

She gasped softly, and curled into him, her brown hair covering her face. She gripped the sheets to either side of him, and he held her a little tighter, not knowing whether she was hurting or liking it...

...And increasingly, caring less.

He sped up more, finally at a speed where he could at least derive some pleasure. He grinned, and chuckled a little to himself. _Finally._

But the voice inside his head that had said that wasn't his own.

It also wasn't his hands that went to Celeste's hips and put pressure on them. It wasn't his hips that sped up more, thrusted harder...

He tried to stop himself. Tried to slow down. It was no use. He felt...like a prisoner in his own body.

"...Farkas...that hurts. That hurts..." Celeste protested weakly.

_Stop!_ He willed his body. _You're hurting her..._

_ We have been patient enough, brother,_ the voice growls back. _It is time to claim our mate properly, and we do not do it with pretty words and gentility. We take her as ours._

"...Farkas..."

His body let out a low growl...and Celeste looked at him, her eyes filled with confusion. He noticed how hard his hands were gripping her hips. They would leave bruises like that.

_She won't stay with us after this! Please...please. Please. Don't hurt her. _

_ Don't...hurt her._

"I thought you said you liked it," The voice from his head was the one that was speaking, and it was so different from his...Celeste noticed it too. He could tell, from the expression on her face.

"I...I do, but my hips...you're gripping me so..hard...you're hurting me."

Farkas couldn't stand it anymore. He fought with all his strength against the invisible wall binding him, fought for her sake, and his own. If he lost control now, not only could he lose her, but worse than that, she could be hurt or killed. And if he lost control, who knew how many more would die?

He couldn't let that happen.

With a roar he hoped he could only hear inside his own head, he wrenched control back of his body, and let go of Celeste's hips, and slowed his thrusts, keeping them as gentle as he had them before.

"I'm sorry," He said hoarsely, and pulled her close, kissing her all over her face, lips, forehead, hair. Wherever he could reach. "I am so sorry...I.."

He thought he was hallucinating when he heard her moan. He blinked and looked down at her...she had turned her cheek to his chest, eyes closed, hands clutching the sheets. She shivered on him.

He..couldn't believe it. "I thought you were in pain...?"

"Only a..little," She gasped, "It wasn't too bad."

And she was telling the truth.

_...You don't trust me with the woman I picked out myself, brother?_ The voice snarled.

He didn't know anything anymore. All he knew was that he hoped she finished soon, because all the interest he had built up in lovemaking had evaporated the moment his wolf had taken over.

He sped up slightly, and massaged that same spot from before. He listened carefully to her moans to learn how to please her. But it was mechanical, automatic. Inside he was frightened, angry, and confused. Even though the truth of it disgusted him, the sound of her orgasm only brought him relief in the fact that he could stop the charade. With a few last thrusts, he tightened his grip on her, kissing the top of her forehead, and stopped, exhaling loudly. He just about went limp from exhaustion.

He looked at the small, delicate, beautiful thing curled up to him, reveling in her afterglow. He ran his fingers through her hair. He smiled to himself. She was alright. That was what was important. The most important objective was completed.

...The next one was figuring out what had happened.

He noticed her trying to speak, but she was clearly exhausted. He wondered at that, given she'd only orgasmed twice, but then he realized he'd woken her up at the literal crack of dawn to have sex. He sighed, rubbing his face. "Sleep," He commanded.

"Kay," She said softly, and curled up into him, passing out almost immediately.

He stared at her in wonder.

_How does she do that?_

_She is ours, that is how. And she does as we say. In return, we keep her happy and safe. You would do well to trust me from now on, brother. Maybe you could have actually enjoyed making love to our mate._

Farkas held her even tighter. Had he done something wrong? Should he have just let his wolf-brother proceed? Whether that would have been the best course of action or not...he remembered the look on her face and knew he had no other option at that point.

For the very first time..he cursed his wolf-brother.


	6. Chapter 6: Humiliation

**A/N: **Sorry that this took so long to post, and thanks so much for all the kindness, favorites, and reviews. It makes me so happy to see so many people enjoying my story. I promise you that it only gets better from here on out. :)

Celeste wasn't stupid. She knew something was going on with him. She had watched his eyes battle back and forth from silver to gold. She had seen the change in him when they had finally had intercourse. And she knew she would have bruises come tomorrow from that change, when he gripped her hips so tightly she had wondered if he might crush them. That strength felt almost...inhuman. Though, she supposed she couldn't say that. After all, she'd never dated a warrior before, nor really associated with them. He was her first...in a lot of ways.

She curled up into his chest, reveling at his smell- functional. He had the traditional musk of a man, but no fancy perfumes, colognes, or soap. She knew he would never understand why she loved him for being exactly as he was: simple, upfront, and honest. He wasn't the smartest man in the world, maybe he could even be a little slow at some times, but she loved him for that, too. And what's more, she had this feeling that he was almost a different person when he was with her. Though there was no way she could know that, given she hadn't seen him interacting with his...what did he call them? Shield-siblings...before.

Speaking of that...

"Farkas..." She murmured, very near sleep.

"What is it, dear?" She felt his fingers run through her hair, and she made a soft purring noise, then chuckled.

"I want to meet your family."

He hesitated momentarily, then said, "Alright. I suppose it is time for you to meet them. But not right now. You get some sleep, okay?"

She nodded, and kissed his chest, then curled up once more. Just before she fell asleep, she felt him pull the covers over her.

She awoke to a scream. Specifically, Ysolda's scream.

Oh, Talos. Ysolda.

"Why are you screaming?" She heard Farkas asking, his voice irritated. "Haven't you ever seen a naked man before?"

"Oh, Divines... Celeste! Wake up, you vagrant! You have to open the store! This is not a proper excuse to not be open by now!"

The shop! She shot up, opening her eyes- and exposing both herself and her partner. "NO! The shop! What time is it! What time is it?" She jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom.

While she was hurriedly washing herself off, she heard Farkas say, "Don't get any ideas, woman."

"...If you don't want me to look, why don't you just pull the comforter back over you?"

"Because it's damn hot," He grumped. "No one's making you look."

"Ysolda!"

"What?"

"Stop staring at my boyfriend!"

"I'll tell you what. I'm going to stand here and keep staring at him if it makes you move faster. You were scheduled to be open two hours ago."

"Just go and open the shop, you have the key, let people in...tell them I got sick this morning!"

"Yeah...'sick.' And when they see this big lug heading down the stairs?"

"Ysolda, I'll figure it out. Just go, and I'll double your pay today. I'm sorry."

"Now you're speaking my language," Ysolda said smugly, and Celeste heard her leave.

"Gods," Celeste muttered to herself, tossing her washcloth on the floor. "How could I have forgotten? How could I?"

She ran a brush through her hair worriedly, trying to work out all the knots as quickly as possible. She didn't notice Farkas behind her until he put his hands on her shoulders. "Relax, dear," He muttered, bending down to kiss her neck. "Let me help you. I'll...brush your hair. It can't be too hard..right? I've done it before. Sometimes."

"Sometimes?...no, Farkas, that's alright, I'm a bit tender-headed."

He frowns heavily. "..There has to be something I can do."

"...You can get dressed," She says, reluctantly, "As much as I'd enjoy staring at you some more, it's not going to be good if someone else sees you. Or perhaps take a shower."

"That doesn't sound like helping.."

"Farkas," She says, turning to face him. "Really. I just want you to clean up and get dressed. I don't think you know how to do makeup or hair, or clothing, or accessories..."

The blank look on his face confirmed that.

"...Accessories? What's that?"

She sighs and pushed past him, going to her closet to try and pick out some clothes. "They're details," She says, "Necklaces, hair pins, rings, broaches. Things like that."

"Right," He said, "And make up...it's like war paint?"

"Yes..like war paint. Without the war. You put it on to hide imperfections and highlight your better areas."

"But no one's going to see your better areas...right?" He sounded grumpy, and she turned to look at him as she pulled on her underwear, trying to figure out what he meant.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want anyone else seeing your body but me."

She looked at him for a moment, seeing the serious, stoic look on his face. That, coupled with his statement, caused her to burst into laughter.

"What's so funny?"

"You," She said. "You mistook my meaning. No, Farkas, no one is going to see my body but you. Now go ahead and get dressed...alright?"

He grunted and went to recover his armor, still looking grumpy.

She decided on a simpler blue dress today, for the sake of ease, and quickly slipped it on and gathered her makeup, beginning to apply it.

"...Listen, Celeste," Farkas said sheepishly, "I'm sorry. I suppose I should have considered that you had work today."

"I wouldn't take it back for the world," She said honestly.

Farkas put his arms around her waist, and she leaned back into him, though his armor was uncomfortable.

"...You put that on awful fast," She said, dusting a bit more powder on her face.

"You, too," He says, "It's a weird contraption that you're wearing. There are strings on the front of it."

"..It's just a dress," She says, "It laces in the front instead of the back. It's fashionable and it has the added bonus of being easy to put on."

"And this is just plain light training armor. It doesn't have many buckles or a lot of coverage. It just provides the extra weight to help build strength."

There was a strange, awkward silence...

"...I suppose a little bit of...learning about each other's craft may be in order," Celeste finally volunteered. She puts the cap on the last of her makeup and turns to look up at him. "How do I look?"

"Worse."

"Worse?" She started to worry...

"Yeah. You look better naked, without all that junk on your face."

She blushed, smiling, despite herself. "Thanks, sweetheart." She leaned up and kissed him on the mouth. He pulled her into him, kissing her back hungrily. Before he can deepen the kiss too much, though, she pushes against him lightly. "Don't distract me. I need to get down there."

He grunted unhappily. "I'm going to collect later," He informed her.

She smiled up at him, a small blush still on her cheeks. "I wouldn't have it any other way. But for now...go to your family and ask when I can come meet them. Okay?"

Farkas looked at her, and she could tell he was thinking about something, though what, she didn't know. His nostril twitched. "...Probably tomorrow," He said, "And take a good, long bath tonight."

"...What?" She asked incredulously, and then sniffed herself. Did she smell?

"...They don't like fancy perfumes," He explained, after a second.

That, like so many things he'd said before, sounded suspicious. He wasn't lying, exactly, but there was something else there. Just like earlier in bed.

She started to wonder...

"...What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing," He said a little too quickly, and that she knew was a lie- especially given that he kissed her on the head and quickly added, "I'll be back later."

She didn't say anything, just gave him an unhappy look.

"...I love you," He said, with reluctance. "I'll be back later." He turned and left rather slowly, leaving her in a wave of confusion.

Suddenly, a memory hitting her. _His _eyes turning from silver to gold, that time. Could Farkas be like...?

No, she told herself firmly. No, it wasn't possible.

With that, she went downstairs and tended to her customers. There really weren't that many, and to herself she wondered if Ysolda had purposely misled her in order to extort pay. She glared at the woman behind the counter, but she only smiled sheepishly back, and Celeste sighed. Ysolda was a good woman, a little too shrewd about business, but in the end, Celeste couldn't blame her. She was depending on her wages to live, after all.

She tried to keep her mind clear through the day, as she worked on her special orders. But always, her thoughts returned to Farkas. He was so much like..._him_, in the patterns and behavior, that she had to wonder if maybe they were of the same ilk.

The letter she received later that afternoon completely took her mind off of it.

She screamed, loudly, as soon as she read it. "YSOLDA!" Her heart was hammering in her chest, faster than she ever thought it could go. She didn't trust herself to not be hallucinating.

Ysolda hurried over, clearly alarmed. "What? What's the matter? Did you break something?"

"No! Look!" She shoved the letter into Ysolda's hand. She watched the other woman's reaction change from disbelief to sheer excitement, and then she, too screamed.

And then they were both screaming, clasping hands and jumping up and down in excitement...

That was when Farkas burst open the door, axe drawn, looking for the threat. "WHO'S IN HERE?" He asked, his voice loud and commanding...then gave the two women, who had frozen in shock, an equally confused look. "...You were screaming? ...There's not a spider in here is there?"

Celeste burst into laughter, and let go of Ysolda's hands. Ysolda stared at the man, and just firmly blurted, "Are you out of your mind, you half-wit? Do you always burst open the doors like that, instead of coming through like a normal person? You could have destroyed our stock!"

Before Farkas could answer, Celeste rushed to him, holding out the letter. "Honey, honey, look! This letter arrived by courier today!"

Farkas blinked, and finally put away his axe. He straightened up and took the letter, reading it.

The letter read:

_To one Celestina Brightwall,_

_ The Jarl of Whiterun would request your assistance in acquiring a new robe for a party he is to attend next month. Attached you will find the Jarl's measurements and adequate compensation to buy the requested materials. Please submit a sketch of your design before placing significant effort into completing it._

_ Many thanks,_

_ Preventus Avenicci _

"...Oh, wow," Farkas said, clearly impressed. "How much did he send you?"

"Five thousand septims."

"...Excuse me? Did I..." He wiggled his finger into his ear. "...I can't have heard you right."

"You did!" She said, grabbing his hand. "He sent me five thousand septims! And I get more when the job is done!"

Farkas is floored. "...That's great!" He said. He picked her up and gave her a big hug.

She laughed and then wheezed- bear hugs from her love, while they were pleasant...were also a bit painful.

"She needs to breathe, you know," Ysolda reminded him, and he released her, placing her down carefully on the floor.

"I can't wait for this! Oh...I'll have to go take a peek at him, to see what color would look best on him. I'm thinking royal blue."

"That's a good color," Ysolda said, "It'd go great with his hair."

"Yes!" Celeste said, turning to face Ysolda. She was so excited that she had completely forgotten what it was she'd been worrying about all afternoon. "I can't wait! Oh, should I make his robes knee length, or should I make them shorter and make matching pants? I think I should do the latter. And then maybe I could design the boots and find a shoemaker to make them..."

"That's a great idea! Why not add a matching cape, too? He'll be the life of the party."

"Great idea! ...What about gloves?"

"Celeste...?" Farkas tried, but she didn't appear to hear him.

"I don't know about gloves, but maybe an arm-band, you know, show off his biceps. Nord men have the best biceps."

"...Celeste."

"I don't know," Ysolda said, "There's something about Dunmer."

"Dunmer? Are you out of your mind?"

"I like them tall, dark, and handsome."

"Okay, that's a little too much dark, if you ask me, and-"

"_Celeste."_

She finally realized he was trying to get her attention when he put his hand on her shoulder. "Oh...I'm sorry," she said, turning to face him. "You know you're the best looking man there is."

He grinned lopsidedly. "Thanks, but I wasn't worried about that. I was going to ask you if you wanted me to cancel."

"Cancel what?" She asked...racking her mind for what she'd forgotten.

"...Tomorrow. My family wants to meet you."

"...Oh! That's right! No, no, it's quite alright. I've got a month to make this, and they have to approve of my sketches first, anyway...what time?"

"What time are you planning on closing tomorrow?"

"I can close up around 4," She said, "Will that be okay? Will this be...a dinner?"

"Something like that. We don't necessarily have planned out meals in Jorrvaskr, but I can make sure that the people who want to meet you are there at the time."

"Who will I be meeting?"

"Well, primarily," He explained, "It'll be my brother Vilkas, Aela, and Kodlak- they're the other members of the Circle, basically, the closest thing we have to officers- The ones with the most seniority. We used to have Skjor, too but..." Farkas hesitated, sadness showing on his face. "He died recently."

Before Celeste could ask how, or why, or even say she was sorry, Farkas continued. "Tilma and Eorland will also want to meet you. If Torvar's there, him too, and Athis...and Ria...and Njada, though Njada's not very friendly. She may throw a snarky comment or two, but hopefully she won't be around."

"..That's...a lot of people," Celeste said, starting to feel intimidated. "And they're all warriors?"

"All but Tilma. She's our maid."

"...I see."

"Hey...don't worry so much. They're going to love you, I know it."

"If you say so."

He took her in his arms, and kissed her on the head. "I'm proud of you, but not surprised," He asserted, "You put so much passion into your work, there's no way you couldn't succeed."

"Thanks. You, too, however succeeding works in the mercenary business."

"Celeste, I'm going to head out. You want me to hit the closed sign on my way out so you can have more sex?"

Celeste sighed. "Rude..."

Ysolda snickered to herself. "Good night," She said, and left, indeed hitting the closed sign on the way out.

She looked up at the man who held her in his arms. He was watching her intently, with those silver eyes of his that made her feel like she was drowning. She noticed that his hair was matted, and that though he'd tried to clean up, his armor and face were still a bit dirty. "Went on a job today, did you?"

"Yep," He said, grinning. "Killed another giant."

"'_Another?'"_

"Yeah..? I kill at least two of them a week. They really get to be a nuisance. They like to come and steal farmer's livestock, you know, cows and pigs. The farmers can either let them have the livestock, or pay us- and paying us is cheaper in the long run."

"I didn't know it was possible to take a hit from a giant and live," She said, feeling a little bit in awe.

Farkas looked a little uncomfortable. "For most people, it's not."

"But, you...?"

"Well, I won't lie. It hurts. But I'm big, and I'm used to taking those kind of hits. I've been training in heavy armor since I was but a little, knee-biting pup."

"...Wow," She says, "And I had sex with you."

They both laugh, and he brings her closer, nuzzling her hair. After a minute, he asks quietly, "..How are your hips?"

"My hips?.." Come to think of it, she hadn't even noticed any pain. "I don't feel a thing," She said. She knew there was likely a bruise, but her pain tolerance had been...forcibly built up a long time ago. That didn't mean she didn't avoid it where she could, but something like a dull pain from a bruise was nothing but white noise.

"...Really?" He looked surprised. "But I saw bruises forming, when you were sleeping. And you told me I was hurting you."

"You were," She said, and it was true- "But it wasn't too big a deal, like I said. I just wanted you to be made aware before you put any more pressure. And don't worry about the bruises. I bruise easily, because I'm so pale."

She almost giggled at the confusion on his face. "Don't worry so much," She said, cupping his cheek. "Now...come on, let me...scrape together a bunch of things I don't have to cook, and we can have dinner."

"Or," Farkas said, "You can let me cook dinner and you can finally go clean your room."

"I will not," She argued stubbornly, "I know exactly where everything is in my room."

"Celeste, those are my terms. Actually, they're not terms. I'm going to dinner, and if you don't clean your room, I will, and then you'll never find anything. Gods know I'm not the cleanest, but you are going to slip and hit your head and get hurt, like almost happened this morning."

She sighed heavily. "I thought I was getting a lover, not a mother."

"I'm surprisingly good at multitasking," Farkas snarks, "Now go." He headed off to the kitchen, and once again, left Celeste staring after him in wonder. It was just another one of those things she'd never expect him to say, but yet once he did...it made exact sense that he had.

Farkas was an up front and simple man, Celeste thought, climbing the stairs, but it was only with a certain method. There were some things that he found it was worth his effort to worry about, and some things that weren't. Luckily, she was among the things he had decided were worth worrying about.

She only hoped that his family would feel the same...


	7. Chapter 7: Consternation

**A/N:** Hey...what do you think happens when you stick a submissive in a room with a bunch of dominant werewolves?

"Shenanigans," my friend said. And yes indeed. Shenanigans...

Gods, Celeste was nervous.

"Hey," Ysolda said. "...Take it easy. You're going to break your quill..."

Celeste looked down at the poor quill she currently had in a death grip- just as it cracked in her hands. She groaned and put her head down on her arms, dropping the useless pieces to the floor. "...Great. I have to finish this sketch. The Jarl's steward will be expecting at least five sketches within the next few days."

"You've done one and a half. It's alright. Why don't you just call it early today?"

"What time is it?"

"Three."

"Oh, gods...I have to start getting ready. ...Wait. I said I could close at 4. Does that mean Farkas is going to be here at 4 or at 5? What time are they expecting me? Oh, what do I wear? I couldn't decide! I don't have armor- do they want me to wear armor? How could I possibly walk in armor?"

"...Take a deep breath..." Ysolda put a hand on Celeste's back. "Why don't you just stick to a dress? You are who you are. Go pick one out, blue, like those pretty eyes of yours. And then when you put it on, I'll do your hair and makeup."

"Really?" Celeste straightened up. "You mean it?"

"Yep," Ysolda said. "I'll start closing up. I really doubt we're going to get a mid-afternoon rush in the middle of the week, anyway."

"Ysolda, you're the best."

"I know," Her friend said with a smirk, and Celeste hurried upstairs to raid her closet. Her closet was perhaps the only organized thing in her personal quarters, and it was organized completely by color. She looked through her blue section. Still, there were too many choices. A dress? How long? Knee-length? Ankle-length? Short sleeves? Long sleeves? Sleeveless?

"Dibella help me," She muttered. "How do you impress a bunch of warriors?"

By being one, she thought, and was overcome with a sense of dread. How would they ever respect her? Either they would think she was a simple merchant, or they knew the truth, and she didn't know which one was worse.

"Conservative but not too much," She decided, "Don't be afraid, Celeste. Don't be ashamed. Nothing to be ashamed about."

But that was a lie, and she knew it. The weight of it heavied her heart.

She tried to push the past away, back under the floorboards, where it ought to stay. Never to be brought up again.

She settled on a blue dress that had sleeves that went to her forearms, and a skirt that reached her ankles. Just enough to be a little flirty, but still conservative enough to be respectful. The skirt had lots of extra material, so it fanned out if she moved- and if she spun in a circle, like she was wont to do when no one was looking, it billowed up around her knees like a cape. It fit her form well, and had beautiful silver embroidery, at the collarbone, hem, and sleeves. The embroidery was in the pattern of moon and stars, and truth be told, she was always drawn to this dress when she was to attend an event in which she would be spectacularly nervous. Such as meeting her new boyfriend's family for the first time.

She wondered belatedly if it was too fancy...then decided that it wouldn't be, if she didn't play it up too much. She fiddled with the embroidery on the sleeves, and then looked through her jewelry. She knew a circlet would be too much...she decided on her favorite, non-formal set. Simple silver with moonstones; earrings, pendant, bracelet. Was the pendant too much? The pendant was too much. She took it off, and left the earrings and the bracelet, nodding in satisfaction. She then touched up her makeup and headed downstairs...

"Finally," Ysolda said with irritation. "It takes you an hour just to pick out a dress?"

"This is an important occasion," Celeste said, blushing in embarrassment. "..I had to pick my accessories, not just the dress, and make sure they were just the right pieces."

"Look, Celeste...these are the Companions. Mercenaries. Warriors. They're not even going to be able to name the stuff you have on."

"I don't care," Celeste said stubbonly, "I want to at least go through an effort to look nice, it's just respectful."

"If you say so. Now come on, I've got the perfect idea for your hair..."

"There," Ysolda said. "Perfect, just like I knew it would be."

Celeste touched the section of her hair that Ysolda had braided and tied in the back, but the woman swatted her hand.

"No! You'll mess it up."

Celeste pouted.

"...You know, Celeste," Ysolda said, looking down at her. "..You really are beautiful."

Celeste blinked a few times, confused. "No I'm not?..." The fact didn't truly bother her anymore. Seeing the trouble that beautiful women like Camilla in the marketplace went through made her realize what a blessing being simply average was.

"It's not striking. It's a very quiet, reserved, and modest sort. The kind that really comes more from your personality than anything else."

"Oh," She said, and felt relieved, "And here you had me worried."

Ysolda laughed. "Boy, do I know what you mean..."

There was a loud thudding knock on the door.

"Ugh, seriously. Hey, Behemoth! Learn how to knock!"

"If you didn't lock the door, wench, I wouldn't have to waste my patience knocking."

"Don't call Ysolda a wench! She is a very nice woman!"

"...Sorry," Farkas said reluctantly from the other side of the door.

Celeste stood up and went to the door. "And why'd you lock it, anyway? You knew he was coming."

"Duh," said Ysolda...and grinned sheepishly when Celeste flashed her a scowl.

Celeste fumbled with the lock and opened the door. "Okay, I'm..." Then she saw the most bizarre look on his face. "...What?" She asked softly. "Is it...is it too much? Too little? Too formal? Too casual?"

Farkas shook his head. "...No," He said, quietly, after a long pause. "It's just...you're wearing so much silver."

"Is that bad?"

She could tell by the look on his face that the answer was yes, but instead the answer that came out of his mouth was, "No, of course not. Why would it be?"

"...Silver is my favorite," She said, in a small voice.

Farkas sighed and drew her into his arms, giving her a hug...and making a face at Ysolda as soon as he thought Celeste couldn't see him do it. "I saw that," She muttered, and he laughed innocently.

"...Seriously, though, I do look okay, don't I? I mean, it took me forever to pick these out, but I thought-" She was cut off as he tilted her chin upwards and leaned down, giving her a kiss.

"You look like the light of the moon."

"Is that a good thing?..." She muttered.

"More appropriate than you know."

It was about then that she realized what she had suspected since the other day was true.

He was a werewolf.

And he was leading her into a den of werewolves...

She suddenly became very, very nervous.

She was quiet the entirety of the short walk to Jorrvaskr, keenly aware of Farkas watching her. He took her waist after a while and pulled her into him. She knew now that he could smell her fear, her nervousness. It explained so much. But would he truly be different than the other werewolf she had known? And if they found her...

No. They wouldn't find her. Her fear spiked, and she felt Farkas tense and hold her closer.

"...Why are you so scared?" He asked, sounding utterly bewildered.

"...Because..." ...How could she explain how she knew about him? She would have to explain how she'd known a werewolf in the first place to know the signs. So she settled for a half-truth, like he used sometimes. The difference was that she was a better actor than him. "What if they don't like me?"

"And why wouldn't they?"

"Because I'm not a warrior?"

"There are people who live in Jorrvaskr that aren't warriors."

"Yeah, the maid."

He was silent for a moment, wearing an awkward expression. "...Being a maid isn't a terrible job."

Oh, she loved Farkas, but he was really slow sometimes... "I'd be a terrible maid," She countered, "I can't even keep my own things straight according to you."

"You got that right," He grumbled. "And I bet you haven't even finished cleaning up your room, have you?"

Why couldn't he be slow in more convenient ways? "...Maybe...?"

"Oh, Celeste." He sighed heavily. "...It's going to get done. Whether we have to do it together or not."

"...I really don't think I'm that much at risk for falling."

"I don't want to chance it. It's bad enough that you can't cook."

She sighed, for the first time, becoming annoyed with his chiding. "Why don't you just quit the companions and be my maid, then, since you're so worried about what I eat and how I keep my quarters?"

"I wouldn't fit into the dress."

This was yet another one of those moments where he managed, out of the blue, to be witty. It took her a minute to absorb what he said...and then she burst out into laughter.

He grinned triumphantly.

"I'd pay to see you try. Really. I'd even make the dress myself."

"That's cheating. You know my measurements."

"I'd make it intentionally small...and.." She stops abruptly, realizing that they are but a few paces from Jorrvaskr. She would have fallen over, because Farkas keeps moving, but he catches her when she is knocked off balance.

"...Celeste..." He murmurs, worry etched into his face, "They are going to love you. Just don't let them intimidate you. They won't hurt you, no matter how much they want you to think they would."

"And why wouldn't they?"

"Because you are _mine,_" He growled, his voice dark and angry, possessive..

She looked up at him and saw the gold flecking in his eyes, the snarl forming around his mouth at the words. "...Not because I'm an innocent little tailor?" She asked, feeling like the latter is far more important when it comes to reasons not to be harmed.

"That too," He said, "But most importantly because they know they'd have me to answer to."

"I do suppose you're a little scarier than I am," She says quietly.

"I better be, I practice being scary every day."

She laughed. Despite how hard bad she felt, he could always cheer her up. He was amazing that way.

She finally stood, after leaning into him for a few minutes, and took his hand. "Okay," She said. "I'm ready as I'll ever be."

He smiled, and leaned down, kissing her on the mouth. "Good," He said, "They would have thought we ran off to have sex or something."

"It sounds like a little more fun than this," She says dryly, and he gives her hand a reassuring squeeze.

And then he opened the doors to Jorrvaskr and all eyes were on Celeste.

For reasons she couldn't fathom, the tall, red-headed woman laughed. Celeste colored a little, but then she started to ponder if the red-head was laughing _at_ her specifically, or at the juxtaposition of the figures before her. She knew that she was half his size or less, and it was probably a funny image to see them holding hands, especially with him dressed in armor and her in a pretty blue dress, makeup, and jewelry.

She pushed the wonder at the back of her mind and bowed low. There were only three figures standing at the table, but they were all staring at her. She started to sweat already, her fear spiked. She had to wonder if they were werewolves, too. How many werewolves were in this building? And could Farkas really protect her if the rest of them decided to make her a meal? No, surely he could not. If they were feral and they lost control, she would be very quickly dead.

Farkas tugged on her arm gently, and she became aware- and thusly more embarrassed- that she had never stood up from the bow. She straightened up quickly, and kept her eyes to the floor.

"You were not joking, Farkas." Said the old man that stood off to the right of the group.

"No, master. I was not. Aela, Kodlak, Vilkas, my brother...this is Celeste."

She nods, forcing her eyes up to survey those before her. "It is nice.." She stopped, noticing the tension in the air. "…..?"

They all had a similar expression on their face: wonder and a slight bit of confusion. The one that could be none other than Vilkas also looked angry; Aela, the redhead, looked the most confused, and Kodlak, the elder, looked surprised in addition. "...To meet you?" She finished, confused herself.

"...Yes." Kodlak was the first to speak, and he strode forward, taking her hand and kissing the back of it with the proper formality. Yet, she feels Farkas growling at her side as though the man had done something wrong. "I am Kodlak. It is an honor to finally meet you. You are beautiful. Farkas is indeed lucky."

Kodlak's words seem to calm Farkas slightly.

She blushes. "I'm the lucky one, sir. It's not often I find someone who can be both strong and gentle at the same time."

"I'm not sure how far his gentility will stretch, little one," Aela said, a smile on her face.

"As far as it needs to," Farkas said, a little too quickly, and it had the air of an old argument.

The tension was so palpable in the air, she could practically smell it. She turned her eyes to Vilkas, wondering in her mind how alike, yet how different they looked. Vilkas was smaller, leaner, with shorter hair and sharper features. His aura and presence were different as well...and that's when she noticed.

His eyes were a deep gold.

Panicking, she checked the eyes of the other two- Aela and Kodlak. Sure enough, their eyes too, were well on their way to becoming golden. This was it, then. She was going to be killed and eaten by werewolves. How many more were there?

"'EEYYY, who's this?"

Celeste had never been, nor would ever be, so relieved to see a drunkard in her life.

She didn't know who this stout Nord man was that stumbled forward, but he was clearly well into the drink.

"Torvar," Warned Vilkas, "This is Celeste. She belongs to Farkas."

Celeste didn't like the way he had put that, but she wondered if the termage that was necessary. Was this drunk man, too, a werewolf?

...Judging by the clumsy way he clasped her hand, trying to greet her the same way Kodlak did, yet somehow missing and instead almost taking a tumble down the stairs...that was a no. Celeste grabbed him and steadied him. "..You've had a bit much to drink, haven't you?" She asked softly.

"So what if I have?" He asked, a little too loud.

"Well," She said, "I think it is a pity, because I won't have the first idea of all the charm you possess when you are sober."

There was a silence...and then Kodlak chuckled a little bit.

Torvar looks a bit embarrassed. "We'll have to fix that?"

"Oh?" Celeste says politely. "Indeed. I propose that you go into your quarters and rest. And tomorrow, when such a strong and courageous warrior as you has rested and sobered up, well...then I would be more than pleased to hear your battle stories." She smiled her most winning smile.

Torvarr looked a little too impressed. It made her a bit uncomfortable. "YOU'RE RIGHT!" He shouted. "I better do that right away!"

Much to her relief, the drunkard staggered off to what she assumed were the sleeping quarters.

She sighed in relief, and the room erupted into laughter.

Vilkas finally spoke. "I've decided I like this one. Come, approach me, Imperial."

Farkas growled softly, but when Celeste looks at him, he nodded at her, his eyes a deep gold like the others.

"Ah..." She walked forward sheepishly, eyes to the ground, and stood in front of Vilkas, unsure of what exactly he desired from her.

Without asking, he immediately placed his hand under her chin and turned her face up- much in the same way his brother did- and made her look in in the eye. Before she could even react to that, he pushed her shoulders back to make her stand up straight. "Much better. You came in here looking like a beaten pup. From that display with Torvar, I know you're better than that. So act like it."

She colored a little, but nodded. "Thank you," She says, assuming that his words were a compliment.

"And don't thank me, either,"

"Well now you're just being demanding..." She muttered under her breath, before realizing that he could hear it anyway, thanks to his wolf senses- and hear it he did. He looked livid. "...Oh, Talos..I'm sorry."

Aela laughed and pushed the enraged-looking Vilkas out of the way. "Don't you mind him, little sister," She said cheerfully. "Let me have a look at you. Ah, yes...tell me, do you posses any weapon skills?"

"Of course she doesn't," Farkas called from the door, where he had previously been discussing something with Kodlak. He sounded irritated. She hated to bring it up like this, but...

"Actually...I...I do."

"So I thought," Aela said firmly, nodding.

Celeste could feel Farkas' eyes boring into the back of her head and she felt guilty.

"You carry yourself with light feet. You must have much practice in hunting."

She winced. She sure did. "Yes," She admitted reluctantly.

"Tell me, what blade do you prefer? Dagger or sword?"

"Dagger," She said, "Quicker, less noise, easier to wield. Much easier to control."

"Have you ever killed a beast with a dagger?" Aela was challenging her, testing her, and she knew it.

Celeste tried to meet the woman's eyes but failed- the instant she did, she wilted under the pressure and turned her gaze away. "Yes," She said, very keenly aware that she sounded sulky.

"Very well then, I have decided."

"...Um...?"

"Tomorrow, you will hunt with me upon the sunset."

"Um-"

"Wait a second, Aela," Farkas demanded, "You can't just bring her out into the middle of the wild. You don't know how good she is with a dagger,"

"Neither do you," Aela challenged.

"I know her better than you do, and I don't want her skulking through the forests at night with you. What if you run into a bear?"

"You don't trust me?" Aela asked. "You worry about a mere bear?"

Celeste can feel the palpable tension in the air, and she was working on some way to stop it, but before she could come up with anything, Kodlak stood between the two and held up his hands.

"Enough!"

She looked at Kodlak's eyes, and though they still bore flecks of gold, they have mostly returned to his normal color.

"Celeste will decide when and if she would like to hunt with Aela. She is a grown woman, and despite your instincts and assumptions otherwise, she is perfectly capable of making her own decisions. You are making her uncomfortable with your constant squabbles."

"Thank you," Celeste breathed, finally relaxing a little.

All eyes were on her now, and she was all too aware of that. "...Yes," She admitted, "I am...moderately skilled with a dagger. I would be honored to fight alongside you, Aela, but that I do not want to slow you down. I could never possess as much skill as you."

"That is no matter, you will learn."

Celeste winces, wondering what she just got herself into. "...Okay."

"...I'm going to take her to meet the others." Farkas walked behind Celeste and took her hand- a little more roughly than usual, and half-tugged, half-dragged her towards the living quarters.

"Wait—wait!" Celeste stumbled after him, not having much of a choice, but he doesn't grant her plea, and as the doors of the living quarters are closing on her behind, she hears Vilkas saying, in an appraising tone,

"You were right, Kodlak. Submissive."

...What did that mean? Submissive?

"Farkas, stop!" She dug her feet into the ground and finally he let go of her hand, realizing that he would injure her if he did not let go.

Celeste stumbled to the floor anyway, now on her hands and knees, panting heavily.

Farkas, for once, did not help her up. His breathing is ragged and he barely seems contained.

She wondered at the ridiculousness of it all, pulling herself up and brushing herself off.

"...Take a breather," She said finally, and when she meet his eyes, a deep and wild gold, she saw every intent to protest melt away.

He nodded and headed back out the way they came, presumably to go out into the yard, or to talk to his family.

Celeste sunk into a bench set by the door, and put her face in her hands, groaning. How did she get herself into these things?

She didn't hear any shouting. That was good, at least.

She didn't have much time to breathe.

"Who the hell are you, bitch?"

Celeste looked up, now beyond irritated. There stood a woman of small stature, dressed head to toe in studded armor. Scarred, with the build of a warrior.

"I am someone who has manners, which is more than can be said of you," She shot back, her voice filled with venom. "You must be Njalda. Farkas expressed his wishes that you would be far away tonight. It seems his wish, and mine, have gone unheard."

She really should have seen the woman's fist coming. It was so predictable, and really, it was that, more than the sickening crunch of Njalda's fist and the subsequent pain in her cheek, that made her angry.

"I don't care who you are, you're not going to come in here and talk to me like that."

Celeste held her cheek, and felt deep within her a burning anger. She felt something within her snap. This entire day she had spent being worried for her life. In less than two days she'd bedded a werewolf, been invited to hunt with another, and been proclaimed a 'suitable' mate by all.

And she had had enough.

"MERCY! Mercy! I'm sorry! By Talos, I said I was sorry!"

Vilkas heard Njalda's cries from in the other room. Of course, he and the rest of the circle had heard the preceeding fight, as well, but such sounds were a normal occurrence in Jorrvaskr. However, when the cries for mercy hadn't stopped, he decided it was probably time to step in.

"I'll get that," He said with a sigh, "We don't want to scare Farkas' mate off. We should at least give her time to adjust to the environment before she has to witness too much of this."

Aela merely nodded and returned to discussing the circumstances with Kodlak.

However, Vilkas did not expect anything even close to what he found.

"What in the..."

He had opened the doors to find Farkas' mate sitting astride Njalda's back, pressing Njalda's face into the floor and twisting her arm at a painful angle. What surprised him even more was the fact that she was able to get Njalda into that position in the first place. Her stance suggested years of training.

...Perhaps Aela had been onto something.

"I don't care if you were raised by wolves, I don't care if you are a wolf, I don't care if you're the biggest, baddest companion in the entire world, I am not taking that from you or from anyone else!" Celeste was yelling down at the woman...

...Vilkas started laughing, so taken by surprise was he.

"I'm sorry! I won't do it again! Let me go, that's my shield arm!"

"Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you hit me." Celeste let her go, though not before she slammed her head into the floor once more for good measure.

Vilkas watched the woman get off his shield-sister with great interest. He noticed a rather large bruise on her face.

"Nice bruise you have there."

To confuse Vilkas even further, the instant the woman turned her angry gaze on him, all the rage seemed to leave her. All the fire.

"Oh, no," She moaned. "I'm sorry..." She backed up, suddenly frightened.

Instinctively, before he even knew what he was doing, Vilkas walked forward with her. He felt his own inner wolf awakening, the same sensation he got before a hunt suddenly filling him. Thankfully, he was aware of that fact immediately, and managed to get ahold of himself. "Stop that," He growled angrily. "Don't you know it's a stupid idea to run from us?"

She stilled immediately, though she instead donned the same look a deer did when it noticed him seconds before its death.

"...Damnit," He said, feeling his wolf stirring inside of him at the look- the beautiful stench of her fear pervading the air. "I was only going to compliment you."

"Compliment me? But I hurt your friend..."

"Njalda always starts fights, woman, and you are stupid to think we are not aware of this fact. I am more happy that you handled it, rather than Farkas. If he had found you with that bruise upon your cheek, Njalda might have been dead by now."

Celeste winced, turning her gaze down to the floor.

_Hircine.._ Vilkas almost never prayed, but he felt as though he had almost no control of his body right now, and it frightened him. All he could do was slow his steps toward the woman, his nostrils flaring with the scent of her. _Help me...I don't want to hurt her._


	8. Chapter 8: Chaos

Celeste had predicted this. Not the specific events, of course- who ever predicts that they'll end up with a werewolf with uncertain intentions pursuing them?

Now, she had to remind herself, Vilkas wouldn't chase her if she stood still.

But...she couldn't stand still any longer. He was getting closer. Soon enough he would be so close that he could-and would, she knew it- touch her. She knew that look. That's what confused her the most, right now- she didn't know if he wanted to hurt her, touch her, or both. The hunger in his eyes could very well be both. Her knowledge of werewolves was limited to Arnbjorn, and thankfully he had already been married at the time. It hadn't stopped him from eyeing her like a piece of meat on occasion, but it was always the same hunger- the desire to kill. With Vilkas...

"Vilkas, stop. You're letting him take you over...you're stronger than that." Maybe she could still reason with him.

"You've never met me..." The voice was deep, gutteral, almost completely beast.

"I know how Farkas talks about you," She said, starting to feel desperate, "You're the center of his world. He's so proud of you, how smart you are...what a great fighter. If he saw you now..."

But her words had the opposite effect on him. Rage burned in his eyes.

She knew she had no choice now but to run.

So she bolted, heading down the hallway.

He grabbed her so hard, so fast, that she was too dazed to know how fast she had gotten. Had she even managed to take a single step? Had she taken twenty? The weight of his body and the oppressive energy of lust and animalistic hunger pressed down on her so tightly she couldn't breathe.

She tried to remember her techniques. She brought her palms up to try and strike him in the face, but the man grabbed her wrists so hard she cried out from the pain, sure he was crushing the small bones. He pinned them to either side of her head. His face was so close now, she had a deep, unearthly view of the yellow-gold of his eyes, and a very intimate knowledge that no longer was she dealing with any human part of him anymore.

He was entirely beast.

Her last hope was to keep screaming, she realized, and it wasn't so hard to do to scream as loud as she could- at least, it wasn't hard until Vilkas' mouth closed on her neck and he began to shift from man to werewolf, effectively cutting off her air supply, and, as his muzzle elongated, starting to tear the delicate skin. The pain was agonizing and she wondered absently if she would die here, crushed beneath the weight of her lover's brother.

Then the weight was forcibly launched off of her- and there was the roar of another beast, large, hulking, black. She could only assume it was Farkas.

It was hard to concentrate on what was going on, clutching her throat. She knew he had torn skin – she was bleeding heavily. What she didn't know was how bad it was. Given that it wasn't that hard to keep breathing, she assumed he had somehow, blessedly, missed the important parts. Her neck hurt like hell, though, and it was agony trying to sit up and gather her surroundings. She saw to the side the most vicious, scary fight she'd ever seen- between two werewolves. Though they looked so much alike, their eyes the same golden color, and their fur the deepest jet black. One, though, was much bulkier than the other, and far less crazed.

Or at least, he _was_. The blood from her neck slipped through her fingers and dripped onto the floor. The wolves both looked over at her and she felt her vision start to blacken from fear. Death now, then?

Perhaps. She loses her vision completely.

"Damnit! Kodlak! Kodlak, he's bitten her!"

She felt the arms of the nimble arms of the huntress lift her as though she were a paperweight.

"Get her out of here- now! Get her to safety, anywhere but here. Have one of the others take her away, I need your help to separate these two!" She heard the Harbringer order.

She heard the snapping, cracking, and roaring sounds that she was beginning to realize were the sound of a werewolf changing, and suddenly she was moving.

"Aela," She rasped, "Aela, I'm blind."

"Sister," Aela says, her own body quivering. "If only you knew the fire that burns in my veins at sights I am all too happy that you are being spared from..."

"Aela," She wheezes, feeling her body growing weaker. "Am I going to die?"

There is no answer.

She feels them moving towards the great hall.

"Eorland! Thank Hircine. Take her, take this woman, and get her out of here."

Eorland? Eorland Gray-mane? The legendary blacksmith?

"Not like this," She groaned, protesting weakly.

"...What?" Aela asked, and they halted.

"I don't want to meet him like this, he's famous. I look Gods awful."

"..." There is a slight tension. "I would laugh under any other circumstance..."

"What's happened? Who is this girl?"

"No time."

She felt herself change hands. Eorland also held her as though she were little more than a paperweight. "Get her to the temple, get her healed, and get her out of the city. If we're lucky, we can get most, if not all, of the disease out, before it spreads."

"By Talos, who has bitten her?"

"Vilkas," Aela said. "Now go! I must help break the brothers up."

She heard that same snapping noises that signaled a change, but felt Eorland Gray-Mane break out into a run and head towards the doors.

"Mister Gray-Mane.." Her wounds be damned, this was the first time meeting a man she revered, she wasn't going to let it go to waste! "..It's an honor, s-s-ir..." She started to cough heavily. Damn...

"You know, lass, I'm both amused, appalled, and flattered at the same time. You are close to death and still you wish to speak to me with reverence as though this weren't the case."

"I've been here before," Celeste said, "It's nothing new."

"Lass, I like you already. Please...live through this. We need more like you."

"I'm not a..." But then the dizziness struck her, and the cold, black wind took her.

The only reason Vilkas was alive right now was because of luck and impeccable timing.

Farkas had just been about to rip his brother's throat out, the rage and protective instinct overwhelming him, when Aela and Eorland had separated them. He had had a good grip on his head at the beginning of the battle...until he saw just how badly wounded Celeste was, and smelled the blood leaking from her neck.

It had taken another battle with Kodlak- a real, true, honest battle, out back, with Kodlak besting him, to get him to calm. He didn't know, nor care, where Vilkas was. He laid there, wounded, as his body changed back to human, his eyes on the crescent moon hanging in the sky.

He said nothing, but Kodlak did, after the old man had changed back, too.

"I sent Celeste with Eorland to the temple. They will be able to save her, Farkas."

The sentence still sent a rippling agony through his chest, and the wolf was still so close that he felt himself howling up at the sky in sorrow.

"You can'tve known, boy, none of us did," Kodlak said kindly, walking over to Farkas, and extending his hand. "If anyone ought to feel bad, it is I, for thinking it was a good idea to bring her here."

"It's no one's fault but Vilkas! By Ysmir, I can't forgive him for this. Ever. Even if I hadn't been dating her, I couldn't forgive him." Farkas doesn't take his hand, sitting up on his own, as the wounds start to close very slowly. "How long ago did you send her? I want to see her."

"Not like this, you won't. It'll just cause more trouble. Your wolf will mate her, and he will do it now, if you see her in this state."

"What does that even _mean?_ You've been saying it all night. Tell me you're not talking about sex, because that's-"

"No, Farkas. I am not talking about mere sex."

Farkas turns to look at his mentor, who sighs and looks up at the sky.

"This is an ancient magic, much older than we. These days, there are not many werewolves. There was so much about us that I read when I first became, then filed away as irrelevant when I realized that it would likely never impact me. I never knew how wrong I could be."

"Tell me what this is. Tell me what had possessed Vilkas to attack her. Tell me what it was about her that caused all of us to lose our heads."

"I know very little. I know of no reason that she should cause Aela and I the anguish she did. As soon as she appeared, all of us felt our wolves tugging under our skin, racing to protect the delicate thing before us. You yourself walked the entire time with your fur on end."

"Vilkas didn't want to protect her, Kodlak, he damn near killed her. And he might have Changed her. Oh..." That was a possibility he hadn't even considered yet. He buried his face in his hands, groaning. If Vilkas had changed her...

He would kill his brother. Without a second thought. The fact that he knew that about himself, that his wolf felt so strongly, ought to have scared him. It didn't. It felt right. He _felt_ it in his heart, in his soul, in his bones. He had sworn to protect her. And he had failed.

He growled into his hands.

"Farkas. If he changed her then we will lead her along the way. It'll be good, then we won't have to worry about this happening again. She will be more than capable of defending herself."

"We won't have to worry about it again because I'll kill Vilkas. I'll kill him _twice_."

Kodlak was silent.

Farkas stood, his muscles tensing, every bone in his body aching to see her. "Why can't I go to the temple and see Celeste?"

"There is a ritual," Kodlak said carefully, "Between werewolf and mate. It can be done with either a human or another wolf. The bond is stronger with another wolf, but either way, it is a mutually beneficial bond. The pair becomes tied, intimately. They are able to sense where the other is at all times. They may be able to communicate telepathically. And they may be able to draw upon the strengths of the other. This also would mark her as unavailable, and she would no longer be in danger from the other wolves. Even if she was, you would know immediately."

"...You mean Celeste would be able to wear armor?"

"...Probably not."

"Good, because she looks better in dresses."

After a brief quiet, Farkas asks, again, "How does it happen?"

"...The wolf bites his potential mate, and drinks her blood. Then she does so of him. I have heard that somehow, it is possible for the human to stay human, though I do not know how. The bond is then consummated and cemented, and you are bound together until one of you dies."

Farkas rubbed his neck. It did seem rather permanent. The human side of him disliked the idea, but the wolf side of him acted like that was what he intended all along. "...And you don't think I'd be able to stop myself."

"No, Farkas. I don't. Not after seeing the way your brother acted tonight."

A wave of comprehension hits him, nearly making him double over. "_That's_ what he was trying to do?"

"Aye...it is instinctual to the younger wolves, who have not control of their beast yet. It is especially a worry when taken into account Celeste's place in pack hierarchy. Normally, it would be fairly low. She is very submissive, very obedient, and generally, she avoids conflict where she can. This makes submissives more desirable mates, as they live much longer, awaken more protective instincts, and don't tend to challenge us."

"She challenges me sometimes. She's not the kind to lay back and do everything I say."

"Does she?"

Farkas doesn't understand why the old man is so surprised. "Does she seem that weak to you?"

"No..." Kodlak rubs his chin. "But the presence of a dominant werewolf ought to quell any and all rebellion, if she's even half as submissive as she appears."

"Then what is she, Kodlak, if she's not submissive? Is she dominant?"

"Definitely not."

Farkas grunt. "She doesn't fit in your theories. Frankly, I don't care whether she's dominant, submissive, both, neither, human, or wolf... I love her, and if she's not safe and healthy, there will be hell to pay."

It was purely Kodlak's orders that kept Farkas from finding Vilkas and killing him that week. That, and he always seemed to be conveniently 'away' on some job or other. Granted, even though he pretended not to, he knew Kodlak and Aela were giving him all the busy work they could possibly find.

After the week, he decided it was enough. He barged into Kodlak's room and slammed open the door with such strength that it splintered in several places when it hit the wall. He just couldn't take it anymore.

"_Where. Is. Celeste."_

Kodlak looked up at him, wearing only a slight mask of surprise. "...Farkas. ….I have not been keeping her from you on purpose,my boy. The truth is...I don't know."

"...What?" All the rage drained out of Farkas like water out of a drain.

"...I sent her with Eorland to leave town for two days until you and Vilkas calmed. But neither she, nor Eorland, has returned. I'm starting to worry."

He felt the blood rushing in his ears. He didn't hear anything else for several seconds...then he was aware of himself exhaling breath very, very slowly, as though he'd been holding it in. Maybe he had. He certainly hadn't been paying attention to _his breath_ of all things right now.

"...I've sent Aela out to do some tracking," Kodlak said carefully. "She should be back any minute now."

Farkas turns and leaves, not satisfied with this. He would search himself. He would find out where they had went.

By Talos, this was **all his fault.**

When Celeste awoke, she hadn't the slightest idea where she was, but she knew it wasn't the temple.

In fact, she felt that wherever she was, it must have been the complete opposite of a temple. It was dank, cold, and dark, and she was bound up to a wall by her wrists.

"She awakens..."

Her vision still took a while to focus, but when it did, she saw a heavily armored and masked figure with several sharp metal devices on a tray in front of him. The devices glinted strangely in the night, and in passing, she noted they were common tools for torture. She was in a dungeon of some kind, and she was in her underclothes. Her jewelry was gone.

"Where am I?"

"Where you deserve to be," The man said, and walked towards her with a sharpened blade. She noticed by the way it gleamed in the light that it was made of silver.

"Wait! I'm not one of them! Please..."

"You consorting with them is enough..."

It had been a while since she'd been in this position. When she left home, she was sure she'd never be in it again.

Oh, if only Arnbjorn could see her now...

...He'd probably laugh.

Farkas didn't get far before he saw Aela. "Come quickly," She said. "Bring Kodlak. Eorland has returned."

"Celeste?"

Aela shakes her head, and Farkas feels his heart sink, as he goes to retrieve his master.

Kodlak nods at Farkas upon his announcement, and the two wolves walked together to the great hall in Jorrvaskr where Eorland Gray-Mane sat.

He didn't appear mortally wounded, though he _was_ heavily bandaged.

"Thank Talos they thought I was dead, though if I could go back...if I could go back and trade myself for Celste, believe me, lad, I would. I am so sorry. I am not the warrior I used to be, and there were too many, and there was no safe place to put her while she was unconcious..."

"My friend, slow down. Rest." Kodlak urged.

Farkas felt his blood boil, especially seeing the man responsible for his woman's safety, who had obviously failed. The LAST thing he wanted Eorland to do was slow down or rest. He wanted to know what happened. He wanted to know now. And he wanted to know who was responsible, and where they were, so he could slaughter them all before it was too late.

"With respect, I don't deserve to rest in Farkas' presence. I accepted responsibility for a task that I failed..."

"Enough!" Farkas shouted. "Tell me what happened! I don't want to hear your damned self-loathing!"

Eorland nodded. Farkas, even as angry as he was, had to respect that the old man didn't flinch under his anger, but accepted the yelling with grace. "...I had taken her to the temple in town. I banged on the doors and awakened the priestesses, convinced them to heal her. She was going to be okay..." Eorland's fist clenched. "They didn't know whether they'd cured the lycanthropy or not. I assumed they had, because the scars the lass bore on her neck were minimal, and we didn't know if she had been infected in the first place. I shouldered her and took her to her home. I tried the door, but of course, it was locked. I didn't think she would wake up for a while, so I hired a carriage to take us to Windhelm."

Windhelm? "Why so far?" Farkas demanded, already getting angry. "So you can keep her away from me for longer?"

Aela put her hand on Farkas' arm. "Calm, brother. Let Eorland tell his story."

Farkas growled lowly, the noise vibrating in his belly.

"...We hadn't gotten far. Not far at all. When soon, a giant group of soldiers surrounded us. They looked like normal bandits, and I figured that if we gave them enough coin, they would leave. But they took one look at me and said they weren't interested in my coin...they were werewolf-hunters, they said. They wanted the girl."

"By the Gods...the Silver Hand?"

"I don't know. I didn't ask. I drew my axe and defended her as well as I could. They killed the carriage driver, the horses, and they nearly killed me. I don't know how I survived. Farkas, I am so sorry...through my blackening vision, I saw them pick up Celeste and take her away. I tried to stop them, but I couldn't move. I was dying."

The growl built up in his belly and filled him, the vibration becoming stronger and stronger until it seemed to fill the room itself...then, with a mighty blow, Farkas turned and slammed his fist into the table in the great hall. The table, old and faithful though it was, could not withstand the force and caved, sending splinters of wood and platters of food, plates, and goblets everywhere.

Farkas couldn't help it, then. His wolf-brother took over him and that day, unbeknowingst to him, there were those from as far away from Riverwood who claimed to hear the howl of rage that burst forth from him like water from a dam.

Vilkas of course heard his brother before he entered- and that was a good thing. While he believed that Farkas would be justified in killing him, he preferred that his eventual death, should it come, would wait.

First he wanted to right his wrong.

As soon as he heard his brother flee the great hall in rage, he entered, taking in the broken table and god-awful mess with widened eyes. "...Poor Tilma," He muttered softly.

"...Vilkas."

As he suspected, he looked to the left and saw Eorland Gray-Mane, noticeably devoid of Celeste. "She is dead?" Vilkas asked, and though his tone attempted to imply disinterest, he felt agony on the inside. He didn't really know the woman, but she was a citizen, an innocent, and if she had died by his hand, he would never forgive himself.

"No," Kodlak said, "Worse."

"...She is a wolf?" He may as well have killed her...she would never be the same.

"No," Eorland said, and put his tired, old head in his hands.

"What, then?" Vilkas demanded, losing patience.

Aela turned to him, her eyes full of sorrow. "The Silver Hand has her."

By the Gods.


	9. Chapter 9: Damnation

**A/N: I am taking some liberties with werewolf colorings in Skyrim.** I would think it would be much more interesting if each werewolf could have its own colorings so I'm writing it in. :)

**More importantly, the lore I use for werewolves, and the term "Omega Wolf", is taken from Patricia Briggs, an amazing author. **She is my favorite author and I must have read her both of her werewolf series books twice. If you are interested in looking up her things, the first book in the Mercedes Thompson series is _Moon Called. _The first book in the other series is called _Cry Wolf_, even though the series technically started off with a short story in the compilation.

**Thank you so much for all your kind reviews- I do my best to respond to all of them and enjoy talking with each and every one of you!**

**Better late than never: I do not own anything in this story but Celeste. All of Skyrim and its characters belong to Bethesda, and the ideas of Omega Wolf belong to Patricia Briggs.**

She'd never screamed so much in her life.

Yes, she'd been put through vigorous torture training, and her pain tolerance was high.

It wasn't the torture that was the worst part.

It was the wolf inside of her.

Transforming, she learned, hurt enough on its own. But to transform while bound?

Unrelenting, ceaseless agony. The iron bands didn't give way even as her wrists expanded and grew fur.

It had been a week and a half, and she had been transforming every night. The first few nights were blessed, because she only had to cope with the torture; couldn't remember transforming, the pain, or what she had done. But after night three, she started to becoming more lucid, and aware of having a deep, insatiable hunger for blood, gore, and violence.

And much to her dismay, the torturer had decided not to kill her. He found her pain fascinating. He found it even more fascinating when she went into wolf form and her agony intensified.

"My goodness," He said, shaking his head. "You barely scream as a woman, but as a wolf, you never stop making noise. Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? And your coat is simply remarkable."

Apparently her fur was remarkable. A pure snow white dusted with a light pattering of gray. She hadn't seen enough werewolves to know how common this coloring was. Were they all a uniform color?

She remembered that Arnbjorn had white around his paws and tail. Farkas had a brown streak down his back. And Vilkas had a tuft of white at the end of his tail. But all of them had black fur as a base. Hers was white. She wondered what color her eyes were.

"And I thought your eyes would darken to the same gold, but no...they turn the most luscious silver. My, aren't you a beautiful thing. If only I could keep you as a pet. Perhaps I could...I must do research."

He hadn't been back, and she was dying, again.

Or at least, it certainly felt like it she was dying. Her wounds sealed themselves time and time again- part of being a werewolf, now, she supposed. She also supposed that the idea of her dying was a little far off.

But she wanted to die. Oh, Talos, she wanted to. Anything to make this agony stop. She felt like the hunger was eating her alive. She was lucid, as well, but that didn't mean she could control her actions at all. She watched her wolf-body write in the binds and roar to the sky, to the moon, until it tired itself so it collapsed into blissful sleep, the only escape it had.

He would never find her here, wherever this was.

Oh, poor Farkas. How heartbroken he must be.

That was the worst part...not being able to run to him, comfort him, tell him it was okay. Tell him something she hadn't realized until she herself had become wolf: Vilkas hadn't meant to hurt her. In a bizarre, twisted way that only made sense with wolf logic, he'd been trying to protect her.

_An unmated Omega,_ A smooth, sleek voice in her head had told her, _is the rarest thing in the __world. Likely, you are the only one. Omegas are rarely born. And for them to become wolf, is for them to amplify their powers. Your effects will be so much stronger now, my dear._

_ What is an Omega?_ She had asked. _What effects? What if I don't want to be a wolf?_

But the sleek voice had chosen not to answer.

Vilkas hated himself more than anyone else, and though he knew it would put his life in danger, he also knew he had to do it.

He had to go after his brother. They would find Celeste together. He would apologize and offer Farkas- or her, if she was so inclined- his life for what he had done. That was the only way to restore his honor.

"Do you think she's alive?" He asked, after Aela's revelation had finally sunk in.

"No." Aela said bluntly.

"Perhaps," Said Kodlak.

"...Talos, I hope so. Please, let her be alive.." Vilkas turned his back to the group. "I am going to find my brother," He said. "Please, in the meantime, search for clues where they may have taken her."

"I had some scents that I was following, but I found Eorland and had to get him healed immediately after. I will return and track the path as best I can."

"Thank you, Shield-Sister."

Vilkas left then, hoping to the Divines that he wasn't wearing his sorrow as his armor. While he wanted the others to know that he deeply regretted his actions, he didn't want them to realize how badly it was crippling him.

_It was all his fault._

It wasn't hard to find his brother. Farkas was loud, noisy, messy, and predictable. In fact, he was exactly where Vilkas thought he would be.

Celeste's house. He had busted the door in.

Vilkas sighed. What a stupid idea. Now all her things might get stolen, _and_ she would need a new door...

Then he realized...it didn't matter. She was dead. And if she was not yet dead, the chances of them finding her before she perished were slim to none.

"Farkas." He called out, as soon as he entered the house, knowing it was best not to sneak up on his brother in this state. "Let me help you find her before you kill me."

"Why should I give you anything?" Farkas shouted back, and he was surprised he didn't hear anything breaking.

"My honor...is stained. Before you kill me and send me to Sovngarde...or Hircine's realm... I need to clear my name. I need to take the first step to cleansing my soul. It would make my deed worse were I to not help you find her..."

"It's your own damn fault your honor is stained."

"I didn't _mean_ to hurt her..."

"Bullshit!"

Vilkas sighed, and ascended the steps towards where he heard his brother's voice. He could think of no logical reason for Farkas to be here other than comfort. It was not as though there were any clues to be had. Though, to be honest...Farkas was not a good enough tracker, nor a smart enough man, to figure out where Celeste was now, anyway. He had no reason to be out on the roads looking, and that's probably why he wasn't. He found his brother sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the bed, which reeked...

...Of sex?

"...You had sex with her, Farkas? Already?"

"That was how we got together," He grunted angrily, wiping at his face. "She wanted it. I tried to leave but I couldn't resist her. Her scent was too enticing."

"...She has a pull to her," Vilkas said reluctantly, "Like gravity."

"Like anything else you were mad about just fades away. Your defenses are down."

"You could tell her anything.."

"Damnit, how would you know?"

"We _all_ felt it, brother. All of us wolves."

"Yeah, sure, because you attacked-"

"I don't know what my wolf-brother was trying to do!" Vilkas said in exasperation. "All I know is that he knew just how to make her bleed without hurting her. He wanted her blood, but not for the taste, for something else...anything else, I can't figure out."

"You tried to mate with my girlfriend," Farkas said, and then he covered his face with his palm, realizing how ridiculous that statement sounded in any other situation.

"All I felt was this overwhelming urge to protect her," Vilkas said miserably, "From me and from everyone else. I couldn't control myself. It was like being a prisoner in my own body as my wolf-brother took over."

Farkas crossed his arms and looked away.

Vilkas knew his brother. That was the exact way he looked when he related to a statement but didn't want to admit it. "...You know what I'm talking about." He said bluntly.

"...Maybe I do, maybe I don't. It's not a concern of yours. You really want to help? Go take that great brain of yours and figure out where she is."

"Why don't you come with me?"

"What help is a big, dumb oaf like me?"

Vilkas sighed, kneeling down. "You're not stupid, brother. You just, sometimes, ignore information that you don't realize you need. In battle, you are brilliant. We all know where our talents lie. I am not, nor will I ever have, your strength, your tenacity..." He paused, and then added, regretfully, "...Or your restraint. I don't think I could have ever had sex with a tiny woman like that. I would rend her in half."

"I almost did," Farkas said. "My wolf-brother took over and cluched her so hard I thought he would break all her bones beneath our hands."

"...What happened?"

"I fought it, the way you _ought_ to have," Farkas said angrily, "I took my body back, because I couldn't stand the look in her eyes, or her statement that I was hurting her."

"What was the look in her eyes?"

"_Afraid_," Farkas spat, "We were making love and she was still _afraid_."

There was silence, then.

Vilkas couldn't stand it any longer. He knew they were men, they were Nords, and he knew that they were warriors. They weren't soft-hearted milk-drinking Imperials who liked to sit on their riches and bemoan all day how they owned all the wrong shades of blue. They weren't elves that hid in trees, or thieves that hid in shadows, or mages that cared for no one's well being but themselves and trusted in a force that couldn't be trusted.

But even the strongest have to cry, sometimes.

Vilkas dropped to his knees then, and hugged his brother, holding him tightly, just as he had when they were children and lost their father.

After a moment, he felt Farkas hug him back, and start sobbing the tears he'd never let flow in front of anyone else.

"I failed her. I've failed the woman I love."

"Not yet," Vilkas said, "I won't believe she's dead until I see her corpse. There is a strength in that woman that no one could ever predict. I felt it when I was close to her."

Farkas' crying didn't last long, even though Vilkas could tell that what the man felt like doing was laying there and crying for the rest of the night. That was another thing he loved about his brother. His strength, tenacity, and will to push on against impossible odds.

Farkas stood up. "...Fine. If you think so, then I believe in your judgment. Has Aela found anything?"

"She found something. Her and Kodlak went to check it out a while ago. I believe that we could find them without much trouble."

Farkas nodded, and grabbed his axe.

Vilkas looked around Celeste's bedroom, trying to ignore the smell of sex. "...She keeps a remarkably tidy room," He says, "Though I suppose it's no wonder. Better to have your things organized when you're a tailor."

"Yeah," Farkas said, though his tone sounded suspicious to his brother.

"Farkas...did you-"

"Hurry up." Farkas said, and hurried down the stairs.

Vilkas smirked. His brother was a hell of a warrior, but it was a well-known secret that he was also one hell of a homebody.

With that, the brothers left to join their friends, and begin the hunt.

They tracked the scent of silver down a long way. It was so faint a trace that Aela went into her wolf form in order to smell it better. She also tracked footprints and the like, with the others mostly watching guard and trying to sense any enemies that might be around. She was the best tracker out of all of them, and they all knew that. Best to let her handle it.

Eventually, a few days later, they finally tracked the scent to a keep located far up in the mountains. They would have made it faster, were it not for the snow obscuring the scent and tracks desperately needed to continue hunting. They had even found themselves asking the occasional skald, traveler, or traveling merchant what they'd seen.

Farkas looked up to the dark keep into the mountains, and proclaimed, "I'm going alone."

"Brother..."

"That is an inexcusably stupid idea, even for you, ice-brain."

"She is _my woman,_" Farkas growled, "It's my fault she got here in the first place, and I'll be the one to save her."

"...Farkas. She is pack now. Regardless of whether she is human, wolf, both, or neither. She will always be bound to us. For one cannot forget events such as those that have occurred."

Farkas growled lowly, and turned to Vilkas. "I don't want you anywhere around her. The instant I smell her you are to leave."

Vilkas' mouth twitched. Normally he'd have an angry response, but his brother was right. For once. "...Fine," He growled softly.

Farkas turned and led the charge.

Many Silver hands fell beneath the hands of the Circle that night. Each companion felt the same: that they would be damned if anyone else would be taken from them by these people. Though it was unspoken, each member longed for Skjor's presence next to them, fighting to retrieve an innocent woman injured simply by association by them.

He would have loved the honor.

Aela wiped a tear hastily from her eye, pulling an arrow out of the skull of a fallen Silver Hand. She almost made a comment, but stopped. There was no use bringing up what they were all feeling.

Pack could sense those kinds of things about each other.

Deep into the keep, they started to smell blood. _Her_ blood. It was faint, but as soon as the scent was noticeable, Farkas took off running towards the source.

"Farkas! Don't be reckless! There are others-"

The others didn't matter. He swung his axe with so fury that if he did not rend them in two, their bodies came so close it was impossible for them to continue living much longer, much less move. He was being reckless, he knew; he knew a well-placed strike could easily harm him or cripple him. But he also knew he had Aela's arrows covering him from the stairs, and Kodlak covering his back from the way he came. He had hoped his brother was long gone by now.

No enemies took him by surprise. He hadn't expected them too.

He almost ran by the white wolf in the cage, before he realized that Celeste's scent stopped here.

That would mean her body was here, near this wolf.

He paid no attention to the wolf in binds. It looked dead. At this moment, he couldn't care less. All he cared about was looking for Celeste's body somewhere in the cell, her blood, anything. Any clue...

...That was when he realized that the smell of Celeste was coming _from_ the wolf.

He dropped to his knees.

"Farkas! Brother, have you found her?"

Kodlak descended the stairs, leaving Aela calling from the top. "So it is, then. Vilkas turned her. ...What a spectacular coat. At least...it will be when it's not stained with blood. They tortured her, then. It doesn't look like she's alive."

At this point, Farkas didn't care whether she was alive or dead. He just wanted to hold her in his arms again, if only for one last time. He got to his feet and grabbed the bars of the cage.

"...Boy, don't be ridiculous. You can't break those bars; they're meant to hold werewolves. They're probably made of silver."

They were. His palms burned but the pain was dulled by his rage, and overwhelming _need._ He pulled the bars of the cage, even though the silver cut into his hands like a hot iron bar. He pulled and pulled, roaring at the top of his voice. Every single muscle in his body lent its strength, and it still wasn't enough.

But then Vilkas came.

Together, he and Vilkas ripped the door off the cage and flung it to the side, and Farkas ran to his love's body, hanging there so lifelessly.

By all accounts, this was wrong.

All wrong.

He was a high-ranking member of the Companions, a member of the Circle itself. An officer of one of the most revered organizations in all of Skyrim. He didn't have time for romance. And, if he did, it would be with a strong Nord woman well-versed on the fields of battle, someone he could fight back to back with. Not..._this_. Not _her._

But none of these thoughts had comforted him when he saw her there. They only resonated and strengthened the one true thought screaming in his mind.

_This is wrong. This is all wrong. It wasn't supposed to be this way._

He ran and clutched her fur body, breathing in her scent, the rich smell of dust, fabric, and..._her. _Her body was still warm. So warm...he could even swear her chest was still moving, her heart still beating.

"...Farkas."

But surely that wasn't possible. He had failed her. He had failed her and she'd been tortured to death.

"...Farkas..."

She hadn't even had time to learn the bright side of her transformation, he bemoaned. She had only known the pain and agony of the first week and a half.

"FARKAS."

And now she'd never know, and he'd never meet another woman like her-

Someone smacked him upside the head. "She's still alive, ice-brain! Move so we can get these binds off of her!"

Farkas was stunned out of his melancholy momentarily. "What! Really?" He finally looked up to see- yes...her chest was moving steadily. He could hear her heart beating. She was quite clearly alive. And, true to the werewolf, her torture wounds had started to begin their healing process.

Vilkas had gone by then, blessedly. Aela sighed heavily. "Yes, now move. I found a key on one of those bastards you killed. I assume he was the torturer. He ought to have had a slower death but there was no stopping you."

"No," Farkas agreed, "There wasn't..." He reluctantly moved, and surveyed his woman's new wolf form. "...White? With silver marks...? Is that normal?"

"What is normal, anymore.." Kodlak mutters.

Aela managed to free the woman, and Farkas lifted her. Her wolf form weighed a lot more, of course, but it still was not a strain on him.

"She is going to wake up hungry. We need to hunt for her and keep her away from the cities."

"Perhaps you can handle that," Kodlak says. "I am going to find Vilkas. He should help us with the new pup. When she awakens and transforms, she will give us trouble."

Farkas clutched her protectively to her chest, and growled a low warning.

"It was because of him that she is alive at all, Farkas. Do you not realize that the Silver Hand already knew who she was? They would have gotten her if she had stepped outside the city at all? And their torture would have killed her if not for the blood of the werewolf lending her its healing."

The reality of that hit him, and an intense wave of regret for his anger towards his brother surfaced. He clutched Celeste's body tighter to his chest, finding that somehow, even unconscious, she brought him comfort.

"...Go on, Kodlak, and meet us. We will set up camp not too far from here. We should be easy enough to track." Aela offered.

Kodlak nodded and went to retrieve Vilkas.

Farkas looked down at the white wolf in his arms, and watched as she very slowly started to morph back to a completely naked woman, as if she had waited, just for him.

As if she had wanted him to be the first to know her new form.

He cradled her close to his chest and carried her to freedom.


	10. Chapter 10: Death

**A/N: **I am aware that some of the information in this chapter contrasts with what Celeste has told Farkas. That is because she has lied to him, a fact she will reveal to him in short order. Also, I only mention Astrid and Arnbjorn because I have no idea who else would have been in Brotherhood at the time; if they were located anywhere but Skyrim around 10 years before the game takes place, and you know about it, feel free to **private message** me and I'll fix it.

I am sorry for the wait and I hope that 14 pages and 8k+ words more than makes up for it. :)

Next chapter we'll be back to the present, but for now...~

_Death_, she thought. _So much death._

"Mommy?" She remembered asking, her young voice bouncing off the walls and taunting her with the echo off titles she'd never used before. "Daddy?"

Their bodies laid upon the floor in strange angles, and there was red stuff everywhere- blood, she belatedly realized.

_Blood. The fuel for death._

But before she could really take a good look at how they had died- surely, their organs had been exposed, flesh torn out, and surely, it she saw it it would ruin her, but she had to see it, she couldn't stop from looking- they were covered quickly by a blanket.

Someone was in the room. She hadn't even noticed.

She looked up to see who had covered up her parents. She looked up to see whether it was a guard, or the coroner. She looked up, mostly, to see if it was the person who had killed her parents. The room smelled terrible and pungent. The floor was red, bright, and wet. She assumed the death was recent, but she didn't know how recent. She was only a child. An orphan. What did she know about death?

The first things she saw when she looked up were deep golden eyes that burned like hellfire. She looked into those eyes, the void tossing and turning like blood lust and insanity made flesh...she looked into those eyes and watched the sea of chaos and death slowly calm, not disappear, but stand still, perhaps for the innocence of a child.

"Omega," The furred thing breathed.

"Did you kill my parents?" She asked the great beast, innocence preventing her from feeling any sort of fear. If she was going to die now, by the same end her parents had just met, well...then it was going to happen. Perhaps she would go on to meet her parents in...wherever it was that Imperials went when they died.

But maybe, she also thought, maybe she wasn't afraid because she wasn't in any real danger. Though, how could that be? There was a giant, bestial thing in this home, who had killed her parents without a second thought; ravaged their bodies, really, with teeth and claws and the kind of strength that it is only held by the insane. She looked down now at the tarp that covered the bodies, and it too was being stained by Death, the rancid lifeblood leaking through and soaking the material.

"I killed your parents," The thing said, "Are you afraid?"

She looked back up onto those eyes, straight into the chaos and fire that burned like the light of a thousand suns. She wondered at all the different shades of gold and red and how immaculately that pattern had been woven.

"No," She told Death, then.

"Good," He said. "Come with me."

And he held out his hand to her, walking to the side of the tarp, far away from the blood spreading across the floor. He stood there and waited for this small child, this small girl, barely even 13, to come to him, to come to him and take the hand of the beast that murdered her parents.

For reasons she would never understand-even then, she did not understand- she strode forward, stepping over the puddles, and took the beast's hand, and allowed him to steal her consciousness.

Black swam over her vision like a million flies, the chaotic buzz of their love song serenading her as she fell under.

–

"What the hell is this, Arnbjorn? You brought back a _child?_"

The blackness still stubbornly clung to her vision like glue on her fingertips. She barely registered the woman's voice. Only one word out of the entire statement stuck with her.

_Arnbjorn._

"Astrid, she saw me kill her parents."

"So _kill her._"

"I...I can't."

"What do you mean you can't, she's a damned little girl. She's probably not even reached 14 summers."

"I mean I can't. I tried when she was unconscious, and it was like this great invisible force holding me back. I brought her here so you can kill her. She is as I suspected the moment I saw her. An Omega."

"What the hell does that mean?"

There was silence, and Ophelia tried to blink away the blackness so she could see. Pain was pounding out a rhythm like war drums in her head.

"It means that no sane werewolf could kill her. In order to be able to kill her I'd have to be completely off my rocker. You kill her, Astrid."

There was the sound of movement and she could feel the woman- Astrid, she assumed- come close to her. There was silence.

"...She probably hasn't got much sanity left, either, after witnessing the bodies. What did she do when she saw you?"

"She looked at me like she had accepted she was going to die."

"She wasn't afraid?"

"Not in the slightest."

"Hmm," Said Astrid.

And that was how she had become a part of the Dark Brotherhood.

"Listen up, child," the woman- who turned out to be tall and blonde and curvy, and altogether too beautiful for what she did- told Ophelia the next day. "Sithis has decided you're going to get a second chance. I'm hoping you'll be of use to us. If you're not, then I'll kill you. Do you understand?"

Ophelia tugged at the collar of the leather armor that was too tight and looked around the cave that was altogether too moist, too dark, and too scary. "Yes," She whimpered, and drew her limbs in close, wishing more than anything for life back at the orphanage, wishing she'd never tracked down her parents, wishing for that cute boy that lived down the street that sometimes brought her sweet rolls.

"Your family were bad people, and someone paid us to kill them. They now serve Sithis. You have but two choices now: you realize that you were meant to be delivered unto his service, or you join your mother and father in the Void."

The woman spoke a lot of big words. Ophelia was too young to understand who Sithis was, or what the Void was. But there was something she did understand. She was stuck in a cave with many people who were trained assassins, people who would be more than happy to kill her should she prove to be anything less than useful. In essence, what she realized, was:

"No, Astrid. I won't fail you."

Failure wasn't an option. She wanted to live.

"Good," Astrid said, "And you may call me mother...for you see, we are all a family now, child. What is your name?"

"My name?...O-ophelia, m...mother."

"Good, then, Ophelia. I will teach you all I know, and soon, you'll be ready to be sent out on your first kill."

"Okay," She said, but altogether felt as though maybe...she was already dead.

Ophelia was a smart enough girl in some ways. She had always understood things about people that they themselves had never realized. But she was not strong. And she did not pick up new skills easily. And surely, she thought, with every passing day, they would kill her in the morning.

"By Sithis," Astrid said, every single night. "Just go to bed, Ophelia. Good night. I'll most likely kill you in the morning."

But the morning never came where Astrid killed her.

She supposed there was no real reason to kill her. She never left the dank, dark cave; she didn't even know how to get back in, if she had somehow gotten out; and how would she, a child, provide herself with food, shelter, and clothing if she left, in...wherever the hell they were?

"Arnbjorn," She asked the old man, the bestial chaos that had killed her parents and delivered her here to become one with the Void. "...Where are we?"

"Skyrim," He said, grumpily. "Now shut up."

It was usually like that. Even though she was fascinated with Arnbjorn, and followed him, and spent hours in his company when he was home, he never gave her all the answers she asked for. She didn't even know why she followed him. Perhaps it was because she was fascinated by him: how someone so old could have muscles like his, how someone who had such a heavily wrinkled and scarred face could have eyes as dark and black as the Void itself. How someone who was clearly late into his years could transform into a beast with such power.

"How did you become a werewolf?"

"None of your damn business, brat."

"Why do you love Astrid?"

"I just do, now stop following me."

"How did you come to be in the Dark Brotherhood?"

"Because I love the taste of death, and there are far too many people in this world."

"Why do you hate people?"

Eventually, he just stopped acknowledging her questions altogether. She still followed him around despite his silence, wondering at the way his muscles turned in his back as he moved, the lithe grace with which he strode without making a sound, the precision in which he completed his every task; especially the weapons he worked on.

Finally, years later, she asked, "...What is an Omega?"

That got his attention. For once, he looked up from the blade he'd been tempering, and turned to face her. His eyes, black and deep as a human, were fathomless.

"It means I can't kill you, girl."

She blinked at him, surprised that he answered her with such ease. "You can't hurt me?"

And with that, he struck her across the face, and the force of it propelled her off her feet and unto the ground. She screamed out in pain, clutching her jaw, and curled up into a ball, anger, pain, betrayal, but above all...confusion.

"Astrid says you're finally getting better with a blade, but that you are naïve and she worries that you will ever take to killing. I see now what she's talking about. I will fix that. I will fix that _very_ quickly."

He had fixed something- but it hadn't been her hesitation to kill anything larger than a rabbit.

He had fixed her mistaken belief that he was the only member of this "family" who wouldn't hurt her if given the chance.

The knowledge itself, truthfully, hurt less than the pain he took to inflicting upon her every day after that.

"Torture training," He said, "If they catch you, they'll do worse to you. Stop your screaming."

She had felt the waves of power that radiated off of him – and fed upon them to stop her cries, although being able to do that took a long time coming. At least, it felt like an eternity to her, but time does funny things when tainted by pain. And he never explained who 'they' were, or how they'd 'catch' her, or even what information they would want. Arnbjorn was like that; only bothering to reveal such things he found that were important, only things that could directly relate back to him or Astrid.

And she realized that the naïve, childish fantasy she'd built up in her head- that maybe he brought her back because he wanted a family, and she could finally have a mommy and daddy just like she wanted – was merely that. Childish. A fantasy.

"Your parents didn't even own you!"

Ophelia could say nothing, concentrating on somehow strengthening herself through the aura of power Arnbjorn gave off, just as he ordered her to. Just like a good little girl.

"I looked into you, brat. You didn't live at that house. Your parents disowned you when you were born and left you at at orphanage cities over. So why were you there? Why were you there to witness your parents die?"

Finally, Arnbjorn lets the rack loosen back to its original position, and the pain blessedly ceases- though for how long, she could never be sure.

Ophelia lay there, panting, trying to catch her breath, and shivering.

Arnbjorn simply stood over her, looking like he always had- the very vision of death and chaos.

"I...I tracked them," She squeaked out over her tears. "I tracked them down. I just wanted to ask them if they could take me back, if they _would_ take me back...I wanted to tell them that I wouldn't be any bother, and they'd be proud of me...I'd...I'd do whatever they wanted."

"Did you get to tell them that?"

"No."

"And why not?"

"Because you killed them."

"Why?" He demanded again, even though she'd already said why. She didn't understand why he was repeating his questions.

"Because you killed them!" She shouted.

"That's right!" He grabbed her hair so hard that she cried out again. "Shut up! Stop crying! Remember everything I've been teaching you! I killed your parents! I killed your parents, and you're never going to get the chance to know if they loved you or not!"

She grit her teeth, feeling anger, indignance, and rage swell inside her.

"Don't you dare give me the satisfaction of screaming for me! I killed your parents! You hate me! You want me to die!"

She growled and fought against the chains, fought against his grip- fought against everything, overwhelming anger and hatred roaring over her like a tide.

"No more crying! No more following me around and staring at me like I'm some kind of god! No more fear! No more submission!"

He finally let go of her hair- she saw that there was blood on his fingertips, where he'd dug in. He undid the chains and she wrestled her way out of the things, crouching- Astrid's teachings now coming to her in her anger.

_Keep your body low. Keep yourself focused. Use your rage as your blade. And send their soul to Sithis._

"That's better. Now come at me. Use your rage for everything I've done to you this week. Come at me, and kill me. Send me to the void."

–

Arnbjorn was impressed with the girl, he thought, after he dropped her unconscious body on the ground. She had fire. She had rage. And she hadn't messed up too badly with her form, either. She had her own way of fighting, as did everyone, but still she stuck to Astrid's instruction like an obedient little girl.

He looked down at his body and noticed several bruises and cuts. They were healing immediately, of course, but they made him happy.

"She cut me," He said to his beloved, who hid in the shadows.

"I saw," said Astrid, revealing herself. She came close to him, close enough for him to hear her heartbeat. "She really did try to kill you. Went right for your throat." Astrid touched his neck softly and he growled in happiness, leaning into her touch.

"Maybe it wasn't such a mistake after all..."

"No," Arnbjorn agreed, gathering her in his arms. "Anyone can be molded. Especially at that age." He buried his nose in his wife's hair, smelling the smell of Astrid- sweet, sweet death, blood, and the darkest of dark nights.

"She really doesn't seem to have much, if any, _power_. I still haven't figured out what you're talking about."

Astrid lays her cheek against her husband's chest, giving in to the rare moment of private intimacy. "She isn't a werewolf."

"No, but no one is born a werewolf." He wrapped his arms around her.

"...Why don't you make her one?"

"Feh," Arnbjorn said, "Why would I go through the trouble? I only did this in the first place because you asked me to toughen her up. And because I never turn down the opportunity to torture someone who annoys me."

Astrid laughed softly. "She'll grow on you," She promised, and gave her husband the kind of kiss that always made him believe everything she said.

Ophelia woke up sore, aching, and feeling like an entirely new person. Almost immediately, as she awoke, she felt the cold flame of rage burning within her. She blinked a few times and sat up, realizing that she was coated with her own dry blood, as the result of her last 'torture resistance' session. Something was missing, too, but she couldn't put her finger on what it could be.

"I am a new person," She said in wonder, looking down at her hands, and feeling...

...Free.

She stood up to her feet, shakily, and went to take a bath.

After she got cleaned up, she donned a fresh set of armor and went to find Astrid. Astrid was sitting at a table, reading some book or other.

"Mother."

Astrid quirked an eyebrow, and turned to look at Ophelia. She saw the change in the young girl right away, and was pleased- Ophelia could see it on her face.

"Good morning. You look like you've had a wonderful dream."

"I'm ready," She said, sparing no words.

The woman broke out into a grin. "Indeed you are. How old are you now?"

"Sixteen."

"Good, not too much older than I was. Come. We will go search through the contracts and find someone who will be _perfect_ for your first time."

That first time, as she laid there watching the person bleed out- it was a messy death, she'd botched the angle of the slice...she realized that she felt nothing. Astrid had said she'd either feel great, or guilty.

But she felt _nothing._

She returned and Astrid was proud- paid her and even embraced her, saying that she had always believed in her.

But still, Celeste struggled with the void of the thing that was missing. "I want another," She said, desperately.

Astrid laughed. "Eager for more blood, are we? Let's see your face.." She pulled back from the young girl, and lifted her chin. "Plain, and that's _perfect._ The kind of face that's easy to forget."

Ophelia belatedly realized that this was a compliment. "Thank you," She said hollowly.

"Now..." She let go of the girl's face. "It'll take me a little while to round out one that's good for you. In the mean-time, go outside and kill some animals. It helps with the blood lust, in between contracts.

Astrid gave her the password to re-enter, and Ophelia stepped outside for the first time in years.

She supposed it should have made her happy, but everywhere was gray, and raining, and dark. Even the trees seemed to lend themselves to melancholy. There was no joy in stepping outside. She searched for the sun, but it seemed to be hiding from her. So, instead, she took a walk along the paths, looking for something to kill.

She saw several deer, and though she did her best to sneak up on them and use her bow to strike them down, they always heard her- or smelled her- and took off running. She could never catch up to them, but running after them, she could practically smell their fear, and it made her feel alive to run after them in pursuit.

She was gone for hours, driven on this one thing. She would _not_ return without a kill. She would not disgrace herself so.

And then, the chance presented itself. A deer, by a pond; the trees shielded them against the wind. Her scent would not be blown in the stag's direction. And oh, it was magnificent. A male, snow white, so serene.

She knew then, that it would die by her hand.

She crouched low and made as little noise as possible. The deer didn't notice her, and she had to wonder if some god or other were on her side. She was so close, now...and then, opportunity presented itself. She drew back her string, and aimed her arrow- and struck it straight in the beast's flank. Immediately, as soon as the arrow was gone from her hands, she was already running, knife drawn, and she leaped upon the wounded buck as it attempted to escape, driving her dagger into its neck.

The thing died almost immediately, and Ophelia let out a roar of triumph.

A shadowy, deep voice rang in her head, only momentarily, before fading.

_I salute you, hunter..._

She didn't care whether the voice was real, or who it was. She pulled her dagger out, wiped it on the beast's flank, and wondered how she would drag the heavy thing back to the sanctuary. It was massive and must have weighed several hundred pounds.

Wait. Several hundred pounds..?

She looked down at the dead thing. "...How in blazes," She muttered, "Did I kill a huge thing like you with one arrow and a dagger?"

"Hircine places him there as a salute to those who pursue the hunt," Arnbjorn said. "Were that a normal beast of that size, you'd be dead."

Ophelia whirled around, clutching her dagger, and glared at Arnbjorn, feeling firey rage burn through her veins.

He watched her with careful curiosity. "How, indeed," He said. "It seems I succeeded. The power of Omega has faded from you. You are now just as any other new blood."

"...That's possible?" She asked, baring her teeth, then grunted. "I don't care. I never cared about it in the first place."

"You hate me," Arnbjorn said, with much amusement.

"You think it's funny?"

"I do think it's funny. I don't much care for you either."

"Then _why are you out here?"_ She growled, low and deep, feeling as close to a beast in her rage as he was.

"Astrid wanted me to kill you if you looked like you were running to a guard to give us away. But, as it turns out, you're one of us, now. Completely."

"Why don't you do something useful, other than running your mouth, and help me carry this deer back, you useless sack of fur?"

For some reason, his lips quirked up into a smirk. "You know what, pup, I actually am feeling generous." He strode over to the buck and lifted it with a grunt, placing the great beast over his shoulders. "Not staring at my back, are you?"

"Actually," Ophelia said in a strange voice. "Yes."

Arnbjorn recognized the tone. "And what do you see."

"Your back is mighty, but the area underneath your left shoulder blade is weak. The flesh is soft, and not well protected."

"If that's all, then you have work to do." He turned back around, and headed back towards the sanctuary. "The sanctuary is this way. Hurry up."

She turned and kept pace with him, now feeling a bit calmer, though still unhappy. The voice in her head had unsettled her.

"You'd better be careful. Hircine has his eye on you now."

"Who the hell is Hircine?"

"The daedric lord of the hunt. Patron to us werewolves. He might even see to it to make you a wolf...or a meal to one."

She decided not to rise to his provocation.

When they got back to the sanctuary, Arnbjorn announced that he was going to skin it, clean it, and eat it raw.

Ophelia got mad, then. "You're going to steal my kill? I killed it! It's mine! I'll decide whether I want you to have a piece or not!"

Arnbjorn turned to her then, this small, weak, whelp of a girl, who suddenly had a big head for killing something that it took no skill to the first place. He gave her a nasty look, towering over her. "I will do what I please, brat. The first rule of hunting is, never kill more than you can bring back."

"Arnbjorn..." Ophelia shook with rage.

"What? Will you attack me? Clearly that aided you so well last night!"

Ophelia had made a move to attack him, but stopped. He was right. She didn't have a snowball's chance in oblivion. And even if she should succeed, Astrid would kill her. "Arnbjorn," She hissed, lowering her voice. "I...will kill you. I promise you, I will kill you."

Arnbjorn actually looks surprised for a minute, and then threw back his head and laughed. "Good for you, pup." He even patted her on the head before leaving, even though he almost caused the buck on his shoulders to slip in doing so.

Ophelia stared after him. She had never hated anyone so much in her life.

Astrid, now completely trusting Ophelia, gave her as many contacts as she was comfortable with, and it was possible to supply, from then on. The problem was, that Ophelia was good- merely good. She was functional, and could not execute anyone with style. She could not carry out public executions or manage to kill anyone with a high amount of guards around them.

After realizing this- the hard way- Ophelia regulated herself to taking only the simplest of jobs, before she had to be shamed by forcing Astrid to do so. She'd never forget the look on Astrid's face when she said that she didn't have enough skill for that next job- such a vast amount of surprise and disappointment.

New initiates rose above her quickly; she was thrown to the side, quickly eclipsed by those with a flair for difficult executions. And the entire time, Ophelia hated herself more and more. She was average, nothing special. At one time, she had been. At one time she had been an Omega, whatever the hell it was...and even though she didn't do anything special with that label -she couldn't ever shoot fire out of her mouth, or fly, or turn into a monster, or live forever-she at least had some kind of a label with which to make herself different. Without that label or extra bit of skill, she was easily and soon forgotten.

And...without the encouragement that Astrid and Arnbjorn used to give her...

It became harder and harder for her to kill.

It had been years, and Celeste was a woman now, not so easily swayed by the orders of those much older than herself. And after every kill, she felt increasing guilt and anguish at this fate she had managed to land herself in. There was only one she wanted to kill, anymore.

Arnbjorn.

But how would she accomplish this? He was old, powerful, and a werewolf. While she had a fair amount of strength and an average skill with the blade, she would never be the powerful warrior and assassin he was. Furthermore, he slept with Astrid, so any ideas of killing him in his sleep were pure folly. He was untouchable.

The idea that she could simply get better and kill him eventually was the thought that had sustained her for so long. But there is only so far a person can go in a certain area, and Ophelia realized this when, after failing to improve on her own, she begged Astrid to teach her more. The woman had simply smiled sadly and told Ophelia that if she hadn't gotten it by now...she wouldn't ever get it. And then, stricken, Ophelia had retired to her room, closed the door, and spent hours crying quietly.

But it was a job, a _simple _contract at that, that would be the straw that broke the horse's back.

It was to be any other job; it was to be easy. The target was a widow who lived in a house far on the outskirts of a town, with only her son. The lock on the house door was easy to pick and Ophelia was inside without much trouble. She went upstairs and slit the woman's throat as she was sleeping- a quick, clean death. She was used to the accompanying guilt by now, and pushed it away, angrily, wiping her blade on the dead woman's shirt, and sheathed it.

"Mommy...?"

Ophelia quickly hid herself behind a bookcase.

"Momma, I had a nightmare...can I sleep with you?"

_No...gods...no. No._

She wanted nothing more than to run out from behind the bookshelf and sweep the young child away before he saw the corpse of his mother: dead, cold and bleeding out on the pillow. But to do that, to give in, would be to reveal herself. She would be put to death after she was caught, and worse than that, it would reveal her weakness. She couldn't even deal with being mediocre. Being both weak, and failing a job by taking pity on a child...she would be laughed out of the Sanctuary, or promptly killed after being labeled a liability. She couldn't do that. It was her own life, and her own honor at stake now.

So she looked away when the child entered the bed and curled up to his mother's back- of course, he had assumed she was still asleep.

And when she heard the deep intake of breath, and subsequent, "...Mommy?" She bolted out from behind the bookshelf and ran, ran as fast as her short legs would take her, ran, desperate to avoid the scream of anguish when the child realized that his poor mother, his entire world, his sole caretaker, perhaps his only family- he didn't have a father, either- was dead and that, the blood he'd felt on his hands was the blood of the most important person in the world.

But she heard it. She managed to get out of that door seconds before, but she heard the scream anyway, so loud and high and anguished, so haunted and broken. She heard it long after it had stopped, long after she'd managed to escape, running faster than she ever knew she could; from the torches of the guards and the shouting and screaming of the townspeople. The town tailor, a poor widow, a mother of a child barely past 6 summers, had been murdered in her own bed.

She heard the child's scream into the next town, and the next town, and the next...

She heard that scream for the rest of her life.

Ophelia didn't know where she was when she collapsed. All she knew was that she'd ditched her hood and anything else she could marking her as a dark brotherhood assassin, and that eventually her legs gave out from under her as she was running through another town. Not too long after she collapsed, her consciousness dropped out from under her, as suddenly as if someone had stolen it, the same way Arnbjorn had stolen her innocence.

When she woke up, she was in a soft but sparse bed in a room that had been decorated with little paper stars. It looked like a child's room, all done up in blues and silvers, and the crushing guilt Ophelia felt at the sight caused her to start crying again. She didn't know where she was, or what she would do with herself now. All she knew is that she could never go back to the Sanctuary. She could never face Astrid or the rest of the Brotherhood. And now, she was alone, in a stranger's home, with nowhere to go.

She had apparently ended up in Cyrodiil, the "homeland" she had never actually seen, and, as irony would also have it, the person who had rescued her and taken her in was the town tailor, an old, feeble man with a cane far too big for him. He was kind, and when he asked Ophelia who she was, she made up a lie about her family being killed by bandits sometime on the road.

"What a sad thing, for you, girl. No wonder you look so broken." The man tapped his chin, studying her. "...Tell me. Do you have any skills?"

She couldn't very well say assassination, could she? She wasn't good enough at that, and even if she was...she sighed softly. What was she could at? Before all this, back in the orphanage...what had she been good at doing?

"Are you any good at sewing?"

How could she have forgotten that? She straightened up, and looked over at him. "...Yes," She said breathlessly. "But it's...it's been years." How could she have forgotten how good it felt to create clothes: wonderful, soft things that made people happy and kept them warm at night?

"Lass," He said, putting his hand on her shoulder, "It's just like learning to ride a horse again. You never forget the basics. And as it is...I was looking for a new apprentice."

She nodded.

As it turned out, the old man was right. Sewing came right back to her, and she was good at it.

By the gods...she was actually good at something!

"You cry too much, lass," The old man chided, "I don't understand you."

"But I'm crying because I'm happy. I can't believe it. I remember how to do this."

"It's a simple cross-stitch. Nothing to cry over. ...Speaking of. I can't keep calling you 'lass.' What's your name?"

Her name?...

She looked out at the night sky. It was a deep black velvet, the stars, numerous. The full moon was shining, and she felt almost as if to gaze upon it was to recharge. "Celestiana," She said, and it felt right as soon as she said it.

"What a mouthful. I'm calling you Tia. Now. Pay attention. We've got a lot of work to do."

She nodded, and turned back to the project at hand. They had to make several costumes for some upcoming party or other.

The old man's name turned out to be Stehawn, and he really wasn't half as grumpy as he looked. Though, he _was_ nit picky, overly attentive to detail, and so strict on where and when and in what order to put the supplies that she found herself developing messy habits just to have a bit of rebellion. Through it all, the old man never stopped criticizing Celeste, pushing her to do harder, better, more detail.

"You can do better than that, Celeste."

"I know you know better than that."

"There's no way my apprentice would have let this stitch go awry..."

But this was a new kind of criticism, the kind borne out of love, and Celeste relished in every second of it.

One day, a year two later, Stehawn got very sick. It was not as though she hadn't seen it coming; he was very old and had already lived a remarkably long time. He was well into his nineties and his vision had long since been gone; it had long since been her that had started fulfilling the orders for clothing.

"Well," Stehawn said, from his sickbed, "I guess this is the end."

"Don't say that..." Celeste clutched his hand, the tears already rolling down her face.

"Are you crying again, girl? What did I tell you about that?" Despite his old age, frailty, and newfound blindness, the old man reached up and wiped away one of her tears with the thumb of his free hand. "I said, don't cry so much, or you'll never get married."

"I don't care about that marriage," Celeste said miserably, "You're the only one I care about, Stehawn. And it has nothing to do with marriage."

"All that means is that you'll have find someone else to grump at you."

"...Stehawn..."

But the man had turned his head, and fallen asleep, immediately after speaking.

Celeste never removed herself from his bedside, during Stehawn's last days.. She was there constantly, helping him get to and from the bathroom, helping him bathe, helping him change...all the things one usually hired a nursemaid to do. She refused to hire a nursemaid. This man had given her back her life, and planted a seed of hope in her that had helped her blossom back into a woman, rather than a broken shell. If he was to die, she would be by his side, and he'd be comfortable while he died, damn it.

"...Stehawn. Before you...I just want you to know. I'm not who you think I am..."

"Sure you are."

"No, really, it-"

"Child," He said sternly, and she fell silent. "I don't care about how true your story was when I found you. I don't care if your family really was murdered by bandits, or what have you. You're a good, strong worker, and that's all I care about."

She kissed the back of his hand. "Thank you," She whispered. "Thank you, more than I can ever say."

And then, he was gone.

After his funeral, Celeste took a long, hard look at the night sky, up at the full moon. She felt the moonlight warm her face, and she closed her eyes, letting its light seep through to her soul and dry her tears. She was twenty-three now, and felt almost as though she were old enough to be near death herself. What would she do with her life?

And then, a voice...the deep, misty voice from years ago, a voice she hadn't heard in a long time, came to her once more.

_Seek...the Companions._

Celeste opened her eyes and looked around abruptly, but no one was there. At least, no one that had been speaking to her. There was, however, a group of people conversing not too far away, and she only heard snippets:

"...killed right in his own bed."

"...Dark Brotherhood.."

"Black Sacrament.."

...No...not them. Not here. Not now. Before she allowed herself to panic, she approached the group. "Excuse me," She said politely, "...I wanted to ask about...you were talking about a murder?"

"Aye," The man said, nodding sadly. "Someone just a town over was killed in his own bed. Everyone suspects the Dark Brotherhood; it's just their style. Broke into his house, killed him, then stole his things and left."

Celeste's heart started to quake with fear. "...When's the next carriage out of here?" They had no reason to be in Cyrodiil. Why would they be here? Skyrim was where they were centered! She thought for sure they would never come here. But now...

"...A carriage usually runs out first thing in the morning, near 7 am," One of the women volunteered. The entire group was looking at her suspiciously now, but she was beyond caring at this point. She had _not_ gained a newfound respect for life, a new goal, a new reason to exist_, _to have her life stolen from her. She wouldn't.

"Thanks!" She said, and nodded, hurrying off to gather what little she owned.

Stehawn had left his shop to her, but she sold the shop to one of the more frequent customers, who had stopped by after the funeral to have some mead and reminisce. She got enough money out of it to start a new life. But first...she had to figure something out.

"...Hey, Lisa. Have you ever heard of the Companions?"

"...Companions? You mean those mercenaries?"

_Mercenaries._ Maybe she was going crazy, and hearing voices, but at least those damn voices had good ideas. The money she had just gotten from the shop...surely it'd be enough to get those mercenaries to kill Arnbjorn, Astrid, and the rest of those fools...the Dark Brotherhood had to end. People like that couldn't be allowed to exist. "...Mercenaries?" Her heart was beating a hundred miles an hour. "...How good are they?"

"The best," Lisa said, nodding. "Ysgramor started their group, as rumors have it. Why? You need some mercenaries?"

"Maybe," Celeste said honestly, "But do both of us a favor, and don't ask why. And if anyone comes asking about me...don't mention I said it."

Lisa is silent.

"I'm going to gather my things to take the first carriage out of here. I'm getting out of this province."

"Where will you go?"

"...Wherever these people are. Wherever that is."

"Somewhere in Skyrim."

"Then I'll find out where, and go there."

Lisa stood up, and gave Celeste an appraising look. "...I don't want to know, do I?"

"No." Celeste said bluntly.

"Then," Lisa said, "Good luck to you. I'll sure miss your dresses."

Celeste had to smile at that. "Then come visit me in Skyrim sometime. I'll be famous by the time you even remember to miss me."

They hugged goodbye, and Lisa left.

Celeste packed all she could, and attempted sleep.

Unable to sleep, Celeste met the carriage in the morning. "Skyrim," She said, and handed the man his fare.

"Aye," Said the driver, "But...where?"

"...Where do the Companions live?"

"...The Companions? Aren't you a little scrawny to be trying to join the companions?"

"Mind your own business. Just take me to wherever it is, alright?"

The driver grunted and pressed on.

It was a long drive, even by carriage. She sent a courier ahead, commissioning him during one of the the carriage took, to Whiterun (as she had learned the city was called). She sent him with her paperwork, a request to set up a business, and a letter of credit promising a large amount of coin for the completion of a three-story building to be her new shop. And, by whatever magic system couriers use, by the time she finally got where she was going, construction had started, and the guards informed of who she was.

She bade goodbye to the carriage driver, who'd she grown quite fond of, and stepped out of the carriage. She was about to head up into the city when she saw them.

They had been fighting a giant on some farm or other, and the rumors she heard were true. They were fierce, skilled fighters, and they burned with a fire that Celeste had never seen.

Surely they could get the job done.

She was so excited that she was planning on running right to them; the redheaded woman with the bow seemed to be their leader. But then the largest one of the group, a massive, dark, and handsome man turned right around and she stopped dead in her tracks.

Seeing him, she felt as though she'd been stricken with lightning.

The Nord man didn't notice her. He was engaging in lighthearted conversation with his companions, presumably about the battle that had just taken place. But she felt this connection with him, this deep pull...and she felt something burn, deep inside of her, something hot, and awful. Rage. Her rage, pain, and all the destructive feelings and guilt she'd carried over these years, burned through her veins, becoming smaller and smaller until eventually, they disappeared, and there was nothing left of them. And still, this giant man noticed nothing, continuing on his way towards the city with his friends.

And then, she felt _it._

She closed her eyes. The feeling she never knew she was missing, growing inside of her – a deep, serene warmth, like the light of the sun on a cold day, starting from her core and spreading outward to fill her entire body. And inside her soul she felt a deep peace, as though everything was exactly as it should be, again. She knew she would never truly be free of regret, but the amount of stress that had been released from her was astounding. She felt like a mammoth had been lifted off her chest.

Who was this man, and what had just happened? She blinked a few times, and looked around for the dark, handsome warrior- but he was gone. Presumably, he'd gone up into the city.

She hurried up the hill that led to the city, but forced herself to slow down, and take a breath. _The Companions live here._ She reminded herself. _They're not going anywhere anytime soon. I've got things to take care of. I'll talk to him later._ And with that, she entered the city.

It was a massive, bustling place, with high walls and high energy, and altogether, it was a completely different experience. She did her best to take in the scenery and the location of all the important places on her way to complete her chores. But she felt overwhelmed, and must have looked it, because she was stopped by a Nord woman as she strode through the market.

"You look lost," The woman said bluntly. "Just come in from Cyrodiil?"

"Yes," Celeste said wearily, "To both things."

"Ah. Let's see what I can help you with. What are you looking for?"

"Well, I need to make the first payment to the contractor that's building my shop by the Southwest wall..."

"Jarl's Palace, Dragonsreach. It's not far, you just go over that way.." The woman pointed to her right. "And keep going. You really can't miss it. I'll warn you that there's an annoying guy screaming at the top of his lungs about Talos, and yes, he does it all the time..."

She blinked a few times. "...Why?"

"You don't know about the war going on?"

"Nope!"

The woman sighed. "You either are on the run from something or you're really stupid. And I don't get the stupid vibe from you. So who are you running from?"

"I'm not running from anyone," She lied. "What's your name, anyway?"

"Ysolda. Aspiring merchant at your service."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Celestiana."

"The hell kind of name is that? ...I'm just going to call you Celeste."

"That works. I'm also looking for the Bannered Mare.."

"Right behind me.."

"Oh, good! And the general store..."

"To the south! Belethor's kind of a sleaze, though. The shady type. Try not to be intimidated by him, or he'll gouge your prices."

"..Thanks," She said, smiling despite herself. "...And a single person to help me man my shop when it opens."

"I might consider it," Ysolda said, "What kind of shop is it going to be?"

"I'm a tailor."

"...Do you have any idea how convenient it'll be to not have to venture all the way to Solitude to buy anything special? I'll think about it. That's going to be a lot of business."

Celeste chuckled. "I'll pay you pretty well. We can work that out later if you decide you're interested."

"...So now, I have to ask, Celeste. Why Whiterun?"

Celeste frowned, looking around. "...Honestly...I'd rather not talk about it."

"...If you say so."

"I do. Listen, I need to get these things done. But come see me at the Bannered Mare any time. We'll talk."

"Will do. It gets boring drinking with the same people every night. Oh, speaking of. Watch out for Mikael. Total womanizing sleaze. He's giving Carlotta a hell of a time."

"Who's Carlotta?"

"The widow that runs the vegetable stand."

Celeste turned her gaze to the vegetable stand saw the woman who must be Carlotta. She looked tired, and sad, but... "..She's definitely pretty."

"Yeah, but I certainly don't envy her all the negative attention she gets. I'd rather be modest and plain, thanks."

Celeste smiles softly. "But you're not modest or plain."

"I know," Ysolda said sadly.

And with that, Celeste went about getting everything in order for her new life.

She saw him all the time; that man. That tall, muscular, unspeakably handsome warrior. But despite her deep _need_ to, she couldn't bring herself to talk to him.

So time and time again, she let him pass by. Deep inside, she knew she was being silly. She was here to hire him and his, not for anything else. But she couldn't deny that _pull_ she felt, when he walked by. It was like gravity. She wanted to run to him and curl up in his arms, even though she didn't know his name or anything about him.

But when her shop was finally finished, she realized something awful.

"I...I don't have any clothing for Nord men?" Celeste looked through her bags for the seventh time. She had spent the entire trip compiling the missing parts of her selection, or so she had _thought_. Come to think about it, she couldn't remember making a Nord Male clothing line. She had taken most of it from the old shop in Cyrodiil, and she _knew_ they carried clothing for Nords. There _had_ to be some pieces somewhere. But she couldn't find a single one.

"Better pick up some handsome man to be your model, then," Ysolda teased. "Maybe that one you always stare at as he passes by?"

"...That...is a brilliant...idea."

Ysolda blinks a few times. "...You know, I don't know that I'd recommend that. I was just kidding. He's big, even for a Nord, your sizing will be off. Unless, of course, you're just using it as an excuse to talk to him.."

"Duh," Celeste said, standing up. "Come on. Let's unpack all this stuff. I've got a model to chase."

Ysolda shook her head and helped her new friend unpack.

And the next day, after all the unpacking had been done, she saw him coming in from the gates.

She gathered all of her strength and finally went after him.


	11. Chapter 11: Rebirth

**A/N: There's sex in this chapter. It's a short scene and easily skipped.**

Thanks for all the lovely comments and reviews :) I'm surprised I didn't get more comments on ch 10, but maybe I made it a little more obvious then I realized, eh? Regardless, all of you are 100% awesome :).

"She should be awake, soon."

Farkas looked up at the old man and frowned. "...She's been asleep so long, Kodlak," He remarked quietly.

"I know, my son. But the Change is hard, even on the strongest of us."

Farkas turned his gaze back down to his love, who he had laid beside him in front of the fire. She was sleeping so peacefully. He had covered her in furs to keep her warm and to hide her form from prying eyes. He cursed himself for not thinking to bring her her clothes, but then sighed as he realized she would just tear them off when she Changed, anyway.

The moon was blessedly waning; it had become full the day after Vilkas attacked Celeste. Farkas still got angry thinking about it, even though, in the end, it had ironically turned out for the best. He had to wonder at the strength of such a small, delicate thing as the woman he held. To be attacked by a werewolf and survive; then to survive a week's worth of torture directly afterwards? Physically, other than a lot of scars, she was fine; but how would she fare psychologically?

He didn't even want to think about it.

He pulled her into his arms again, even though he'd just put her down recently, and held her close. He buried his nose in her hair, inhaling her smell. Amazing that she still had the same scent, even after all this, although a few things had obviously, changed. Instead of linen, he smelled the moldy smell of old ruins; instead of perfume, he smelled blood. And instead of human...he smelled wolf.

"If she wakes up and Changes, she's going to hurt you," Kodlak reminded him.

"I don't care." Farkas grumbled.

Kodlak sighed, leaning back.

Aela and Vilkas had gone off to hunt, leaving Farkas and Kodlak with the unconscious Newborn. They returned then, carrying between them four dead deer.

Farkas kept his nose in Celeste's hair, ignoring the hunger that rose in his belly from the sight of the fresh meat. In order to eat, he would have had to put her down, something he wasn't willing to do just then. Besides, they hadn't even cleaned the kill yet; it was still whole, the meat still inside the body.

However, the Newborn...

Celeste woke, then, with a great heaving shudder and an agonized moan, as though she were in pain.

_Hunger..._ So much hunger...the smell of fresh blood was so enticing. She was so hungry...

But there were arms, arms like metal bars, holding her. She had to get out.

Inside of her, there was a howl of rage at her containment, and she opened her eyes, revealing the black velvet of the night sky. Roaring angrily, she fought against the arms that would hold her captive. "_I AM STARVING!" _She screamed in rage, and bit down with all her strength on the arm attempting to keep her in place. She heard a groan of pain and tasted the metallic tang of blood. Finally, blessedly, she was released. She swallowed the blood in her mouth without a second thought.

She sprung to her feet. Everything was sharper and more vivid: she could hear the wings of a luna moth fluttering away; she could smell the iron of swords laying nearby, she could make out the details of a house far in the distance. She knew there were people around- no...not people. _Wolves._ But she didn't care. No one would stand in her way. Her hunger was her strength.

"Gods...she bit me." Farkas sounded wounded, though he was more distraught from the act than the actual wound itself.

"Of course she did, Ice Brain. We told you to put her down so that when she woke up that wouldn't happen. But you didn't listen."

There. The voice that spoke. The redhead. She was holding the meat- the _food._

"Aela, the deer. Toss it, _now._" Kodlak commanded.

The redheaded woman dropped the deer she was holding, and Celeste was running, faster, freer than she ever had before. A rush of adrenaline filled her. _Food..._

She then grabbed one of the deer, and, with a grunt, threw it, with all her strength, to the west.

Celeste abruptly changed direction, now heading after the airborne deer. Her feet weren't fast enough. She could get there faster with paws. She felt pain rack her body, and she fell to her knees.

As the Change started to consume her, she heard the sound of footsteps, and the clanking of armor.

"No, Farkas! Stay back, she's going to Change."

"Let go of me! Let me go to her!"

"Stay put, brother!"

Pain shot along every vein as she felt her body split open and expand. Fur sprouted and grew, covering her body; her face elongated into a snout; her fingers grew and curved into claws. She got to her feet, hunched over, the pain of the recent change not hindering the wolf in its mad desire for food, meat, sustenance...

_Life..._

And finally she was upon the deer, effortlessly tearing through its skin with her claws. She stuck her snout in the opening she had made and began to feast openly. Nothing else mattered but how quickly she could get the meat to her weakened and ailing body.

"Leave her be when she's eating. You know how you were when you first changed. How we all were." Vilkas finally let go of his brother.

Farkas watched the great white beast tear into the corpse with so much vigor that it was sickening. "...Surely I didn't..look like _that_," He protested weakly. A feeling of disgust settled over him.

"You really think the Silver Hands fed her?" Aela asked crossly, and tossed another deer near to Celeste. "Of course not. We may have to bring back more for the rest of us."

"Is it necessary for all of us to be here?" Vilkas asked crossly. "Surely it won't take all four of us to contain her. She's so small, even as a wolf."

"Maybe not," Kodlak said, "But it's best to be sure we can. Let's see how she is after eating. If she seems calmer, then whoever wants to leave, can leave."

Celeste ate through almost two deer, and Farkas watched the entire time, feeling helpless. Could this really be really be his woman? Could she really be devouring those deer in such a way? Could she really have bitten him? Farkas looked down at the wound on his forearm and of course, it was gone; she had been a human when she bit him, so the damage had been minimal in the first place, but _Gods_ it had hurt. "...Is that really...?"

Vilkas put his hand on his brother's shoulder, but wouldn't meet him in the eye or speak.

After her meal, Celeste felt much better. She licked her jaws, getting every last drop of blood, and turned to examine those who had been watching her, with curiosity. Her wolf vaguely registered that she knew these people.

"...Celestiana," Kodlak began, "Do you remember us? We are friends."

The white wolf tilted her head, and wagged her tail.

"Good, she's fine," Vilkas said, and abruptly left. The others watched him, looking a bit confused, but then shrugged off Vilkas' behavior as just being one of those things he did.

Celeste watched him go as well, curious...then cautiously approached the others. She kept her tail between her legs, her head down.

"Why does she approach us like this?" Aela asked curiously, a look of disbelief on her face

"She is setting her place in the pack," Kodlak explained, though he looked confused himself. "...Though I...am surprised. She contains no hostility towards us at all."

Celeste sheepishly looked up at Kodlak, assuming him to be the leader since he was the one answering all the questions. She didn't meet his eyes.

"It's alright," Kodlak nodded, feeling incredibly awkward. "...I am no alpha. We have no alpha in this pack."

Celeste's ears pinned back and she backed away cautiously.

"You are among friends. You don't need to submit to us. We are equals."

"Celeste.."

That voice...her ears pricked up, and she turned to look at the tall, dark man to the left.

_Ours_, a voice inside of her head told her firmly. As she gazed upon him, a weird realization settling in her head. Yes, she knew these people. That was her boyfriend. These others were his family.

Cautiously, Celeste approached Farkas and sniffed him.

Farkas grabbed the werewolf, ignoring the fact that she was currently a giant man-eating beast, and gave her a strong hug, the kind he'd always wanted to give her before but hadn't been able to for fear of hurting her.

The wolf yelped, but it wasn't out of pain, but surprise.

"Let's leave them," Kodlak said to Aela quietly, and then, they too, took their leave.

And they were alone.

Farkas took Celeste's muzzle in his hands, looking deep into her eyes. "...Silver," He said, and then his lips tugged into a smile. "Will you ever stop being ironic?"

The wolf wagged her tail happily.

"You look okay, but I'm still going to worry until you're back to human form and can tell me that you're okay."

Celeste licked his arm gently, trying to reassure him that she was okay. She didn't want him to worry.

"Well," Farkas asked, "Did you leave any deer for me? I'm hungry, too. Though, if you don't mind, I'd like to eat it as a human." He let go of her face begrudgingly.

Celeste bounded off, finding one of the deer that she hadn't touched, and grabbed, dragging it towards him to lay it at his feet.

"...I guess that's a yes. Alright. I'll get to cleaning this." He eyed her warily. "If you get hungry, there's another one to the side. I don't mind sharing with you, but in general, it's a bad idea to go after another wolf's food."

She growled softly.

"And it's impolite."

Her tail drooped.

"Hey, hey. I'm not scolding you. I'm just trying to help. You're still new to all of this. And you were hungry. No one blames you for acting that way."

She looked up at him with mournful eyes, and he patted her on the head.

"You'll get used to it. I promise. I'm here to help." Farkas took out his knife and began the process of skinning and cleaning the kill.

The wolf took a perch a little distance away, watching him intently.

That was awkward, so he said the first thing he could think of to make conversation. "Vilkas is really sorry...but you don't have to forgive him if you don't want to. I do, though, because he's my brother, and he regretted it. He was willing to let me kill him if I so pleased."

Celeste's ears perked up.

"Of course I wouldn't kill him," Farkas muttered. "He's my brother. And besides...I know what it's like to lose control like that. I lost control with you, too."

Celeste wagged her tail.

"I know you were okay. But that doesn't make me feel good about it."

Celeste whined softly.

He kept on like that for a long time. Celeste didn't try to steal his kill, or hurt him, or anything else like that. Farkas was a simple man, and this strange behavior was beyond him. Newborn wolves were generally aggressive, bloodthirsty, and angry. They didn't remember anyone or anything, and acted completely on instinct.

Though, he supposed, maybe _this_ was her instinct.

He studied her as he roasted the venison over the open fire. White, with gray dusting and silver eyes. Maybe it was that omega thing Kodlak had mentioned that caused those colors. Whatever an omega was. If she was one.

"Are you an omega, like Kodlak suggested?"

Celeste perked up, and her eyes searched his.

Farkas felt a deep rumbling from her, some sort of weird vibration that made him sleepy all of the sudden. "...Is that a yes?"

She nodded, and the vibration stopped.

_Huh,_ Farkas thought, _maybe that's part of it?_

"Okay. I'll ask you about that when you change back."

He was tired; he had been up all day already, and the battle had worn him out. After he ate his fill, he looked at the wolf. "I'm going to sleep, Celeste. Will you promise me that you'll be here when I wake up?"

Celeste looked into his eyes then, and he knew she was trying to convey a deeper truth that he couldn't understand. All he really understood was 'yes'.

Satisfied, Farkas removed his armor and crawled under his furs. He felt the wolf curl up at his feet, and he grinned in response...before sleep overtook him.

In the morning, she was human, and in his arms.

He blinked a few times, and shook his head, trying to make sure that it wasn't just a dream. It wasn't; she was human, and her warm, naked body was pressed into his. She must have crawled in next to him while he slept. He reveled in the feeling of skin against bare skin, and pulled her even closer to him, growling softly into her hair.

She whimpered in her sleep and he kissed her then; he started at her forehead and moved down her temple, down her cheek, her neck...

When he heard her breath growing ragged, he knew she was awake.

He didn't stop. He continued down to her collarbone and his mouth trailed down to her breasts. He kept one arm around her, but used his adjacent hand to cup her bare breast, squeezing lightly.

"Farkas," She breathed, sounding like she wanted to tell him something.

But now wasn't the time for words. He took her nipple into his mouth and sucked, enjoying how she writhed against him and gasped out, loving that it still tasted exactly the same as it had before.

After paying careful, loving attention to her chest, he moved his hands to her hips, holding her still. He trailed kisses down her belly, heading to the area that had made her jerk away before.

And she knew where he was headed; she tried to scoot away, tried to move, but his hands held her hips firmly in place.

"No," Farkas growled, and she stilled, her face filling with color.

He took one hand and parted her legs with it. Immediately, and without hesitation, he pressed his mouth to her vagina and began to do to her what he had wanted to for ages...what he had wanted to do to her since just about the beginning.

He kept his arm curled around her thigh, keeping her steady while he pleased her. Her moans and whimpers, the way she writhed against him...it was intoxicating. He felt as though it strengthened him, as though he could do this forever. It didn't take much to cause her to orgasm, and he didn't stop after one, either. He pleased her with his mouth and hands until _he_ decided it was enough.

And then he finally wiped his mouth, and released her, straightening himself up. He looked down at her body and saw her trembling with the aftershock of his treatment, and thought to himself that surely, he had never felt such a need for any woman before.

But, still, even though he desired her, and even though he had become painfully aroused, he pressed his body to hers and took time to kiss her passionately; to let his hands wander her body and map every inch of her. He took time, until he knew she had recovered, and was ready.

And when she was, he pressed his forehead to hers, looking deep into those innocent blue eyes, and entered.

It was different this time, he realized. Before he had caused her pain; indeed, there was even some now. But...her mouth formed a different shape, her eyes held a different emotion. He knew that it was better, this time.

"You are a wolf now," He warned, "I'm not taking it easy on you anymore."

And he didn't. He thrust hard, grinding himself into her, and increased his speed as he progressed. He pulled up her hips to meet his, gripping them tightly and allowing himself, for the first time, to be lost in the act and sensation of making love to a woman he actually loved.

Her screams were ones of pleasure, and she trembled beneath him. He anchored himself above her and bit her shoulder roughly, purely on instinct. She cried out, and normally he would have been angry at himself the moment her blood filled his mouth and he swallowed. But, in that moment, he felt himself finally, blessedly orgasm and release. The feeling took hold of his body with a firm grip and drew a low, rough growl out of his throat.

A strange knowledge came over him that, in that moment, Celeste had also orgasmed. A strange feeling of connectedness settled over both of them simultaneously, and it was almost as though they were thinking with the same mind as he collapsed, exhausted, on top of her small body. The act, before her transformation, would have harmed her, rendered her unable to breathe. Now, however, Celeste simply lay panting heavily, exhausted, as she ran her fingers through his hair.

"...What...just happened?" She asked breathlessly.

"We mated," Farkas said, and the knowledge of it, this new bond that they had created, overwhelmed him as he laid there.

"...But...we can't," Celeste said weakly. "..You don't _know._.."

But it had happened. She could feel the bond, too: it was as clear as the sun warming their skin.

"It's done, Celeste. It's done. And it's wonderful."

She couldn't deny that it was, indeed, wonderful, with her love at her breast and her hands in his hair. It was wonderful, but _she_ felt wrong: as though she'd cheated him. He didn't know the truth.

Farkas felt her worry, felt it radiating through the newness of the bond like pins and needles. "Why do you worry? Do you not want to be with me?"

"Forever," She says honestly, "But you don't know who I really am."

"I doubt that," Farkas replied, "I doubt that very much."

"Farkas...I knew that you were a werewolf."

He moved his head, surprise evident on his face, and placed his chin between her breasts. He watched her. "You..you did? How? And how long did it take you to find out?"

"I figured it out while we were making love," She admitted, "I...I knew a werewolf a long time ago. His eyes turned gold just before he would kill and when he transformed."

"You knew a werewolf?"

"Yes." She frowned. She wanted to hesitate. She had wanted to keep this secret for a long time, much longer than it had been. But it was clear now, that the truth couldn't wait. He had to know who she was, and let him break this "bond," before she hurt him further. "...His name was Arnbjorn. He killed my parents."

She told him, then; she told him everything. And she couldn't help from crying during most of it. The gravity of her past, and the reality of her future, was so much for her to bear. She was a werewolf now, and worse, she was going to lose the purest, most kindhearted person she'd ever known. She was going to lose the man she'd fallen in love with. She was going to be alone with this new ailment of hers and not have anyone to guide her. She was going to have...

...To face Arnbjorn alone.

After she finished, she started bawling. She knew what came next and couldn't bear to think of how she had ruined the afterglow of what should have been a wonderful thing for him. For her. For both of them...

Farkas looked at her for a few seconds, trying to absorb what she had told him. After a moment, he sat up, drawing her into his arms, and let her cry into his chest.

"Farkas?..." She asked, confusion stopping the tears for the moment. She looked up at him, not understanding his actions.

"Yes, my love?" He kissed her on the forehead.

"...Doesn't...don't...you..."

"Hm...?"

"...Aren't you going to dump me? I...I _lied_ to you."

He looked deep into her eyes then. "Celeste, I'm a simple man. I don't understand half of what you just said to me. You know what I do know? Someone hurt you. Someone wants you dead. I don't care who you were in the past. All that matters to me is who you are know."

"Who am I, now..." Celeste wondered softly to herself.

"My mate," Farkas said firmly, "And we, together, are going to kill this Arnbjorn person. No one like that deserves to exist."

Celeste did start crying again, but this time, out of wonder. What had she ever done to deserve such a man? She was an _assassin_. She killed innocent people for pay and left children as traumatized orphans. And yet, she had been granted a man that could take all of her pain away.

_Seek the Companions_, Hircine had told her, and she had to wonder whether somehow, Hircine had planned this all along. Though, maybe, all he had done was given her direction to her life when she had none.

Now, though, she had a clear direction and purpose. Through the gift of her wolf, and the blessing of the bond between her and Farkas, maybe she could finally do what she swore to do years ago.

Maybe she had finally found a way to destroy the Dark Brotherhood.


	12. Chapter 12: Life

**A/N: **Sorry this took so long to post. College started up again this week, so things will slow down. But don't worry. I won't abandon this story. :)

Thanks for reading!

"So, omega."

Farkas looked down at his new mate. It had been about a week since he had rescued her, and they had stayed well out in the fields. She was wolf most of the time, as was normal for a Newborn; though, abnormally, she was more peaceful than any other wolf. She hunted, just like the rest of them- she had the strength and vitality that they all had...but she lacked the ferocity. Instead of enjoying the death of her prey, she enjoyed the pursuit.

She could look him in the eyes as a wolf if he wanted to, even though, if he remembered correctly, she was supposed to tend towards submissiveness- and that went against everything he'd heard. Maybe he should try doing that learning thing Vilkas was always doing. ...What was that called again? Oh yeah. Reading.

"...I think I'm starting to get it. Kind of."

Celeste tilted her head.

"...Actually," He said, after a moment, "I don't. I don't get it." He sighed.

Celeste made a soft growling noise that would have been laughter if she was in her human form.

"Where is...your ferocity?"

Celeste tilted her head, again.

"Normally...when we hunt. There's this burning inside. Like..." Farkas really wasn't good at explaining things, but he did his best. "...you just _have_ to kill it. There's this thrill in finally being able to bring down your prey...and...you just don't have that. I can tell you enjoy the hunt, dear, but...it's not the same. You don't take pleasure in the death...but in the chase."

Celeste's ears drooped.

"I'm not scolding you. I just don't understand, that's all." He didn't understand a lot of things, but this was the first time he had ever hated himself for it. "...I should have let someone else do this. Kodlak, probably. I should-"

Celeste tackled the man. Normally, the tackle wouldn't even work; but currently she was a wolf, a wolf with at least 100 pounds more than she had as a human- and Farkas was taken unaware. As such, he tumbled over, and ended up on his back, with a very angry looking wolf staring right into his face- silver eyes burning with resolve.

_I don't want anyone else._

The thought buzzed and bounced in his head, like a bee stuck under a pot.

"Okay, okay..." Farkas grunted, and pressed his hands against her, trying to get her off of him. "..Let me up."

She growled again, and much to his surprise, he found that she was actually able to keep him down. That annoyed him, so he tried harder, pressing all of his strength into it. "Damnit, Celeste.."

Celeste growled louder and pressed back. Normally, if he had been in wolf form, he could have overpowered her easily; but he was not, and she, as a wolf, wielded all the strength that came with it. As it was, it took all of _his _strength to rise just halfway, battling with her.

"Damn..." Part of him wanted to just give in and lay down like she wanted him to – although he had no idea why she wanted him to do that in the first place. The other, larger part of him – his dominant wolf- did not like that position, did not like that she ignored his orders, did not like this at all. "Get off me!"

The struggle continued for a few more seconds...before the wolf finally let go of him and rolled back with the force of Farkas's strength. She got to her feet, and met his eyes, panting softly.

"...Hey," Farkas said, as it dawned on him. "I get it."

The wolf grinned- well, at least it looked like she did- and strode forward, licking his cheek.

"...Neither dominant nor submissive, eh...depends on your mood? Well...that could be interesting." He grinned wickedly. "Is it like that when you're a human, too?"

Celeste shook her head no.

"...Pity," Farkas said, "It would be a real kick to see a tiny thing like you try to dominate me."

The wolf smacked his arm, and he laughed. "You're cute when you're mad."

Celeste growled softly.

"You've been in that form for a while. Why don't you try changing back now?"

She pinned her ears back, tucked her tail between her legs.

"I know..." Farkas murmured. He understood her consternation. Last time she had tried to change back, she couldn't- and it had caused her a lot of pain. Him, too, by proxy. "But we have to keep trying. We have to help you get control over it. Do you really want to be in that form forever?"

She shook her head.

"I didn't think so. Now let's try again. I'm here, Celeste. Just focus on me."

Celeste looked up at him, and it pained him to see the fear in her eyes. He took her clawed hands- carefully- in his, and nodded at her.

He forced himself to be strong against the fear in her eyes, and hold her hands the entire time. He forced himself watch the grotesque and painful transformation back to human, even though the sight of her bones snapping and reforming- the sight of her shrinking in on herself- the sight of her in so much pain, yet unable to cry out... it ate at him. It tore at him. _Killed_ him to watch.

He had to cure her. Not too long ago, Kodlak had managed to find some way to cleanse them. He was a wolf when Farkas last saw him, but it had been a week; maybe he had finally gone and done it. When he got back, he'd ask the man. He couldn't stand watching her go through this pain, especially not when she found far less joy in the Gift than the rest of them.

When she was finally human, he took her exhausted self into his arms, planting soft kisses everywhere he knew it hurt the most- the joints, broken and reshaped; the nose, stretched and retracted; but most of all...the heart, forced to tear from one world into another, reshaping its very being.

Celeste whined, completely exhausted. "...It hurts," She whimpered. "Will it ever stop hurting?"

"No," Farkas said honestly, "but you get used to it. Eventually, maybe even like it. Though, I don't know. You aren't adapting to the Change the way the rest of us did."

He let her rest in his arms as long as she needed, and she finally sat up, curling into his chest.

"How much longer do we have to be out here?"

"Honestly...?" Farkas paused, thinking. "...until you're not spontaneously becoming a wolf anymore, at the very least."

Celeste sighed.

It took another week. Another painstaking week of watching her suffer through transformation after transformation. He looked within her for bitterness...anger...sorrow. He looked for regret. He looked for some kind of negative emotion, anything...

...He found none, except within himself.

Finally, he asked, when he was holding her newly reformed, blessedly naked body, "...Don't you wish this was different?"

Celeste opened her eyes then- and there was still silver there – traces of the moon. "Never," She said firmly.

He blinked a few times in bewilderment. "...Why? All this pain, Celeste. This curse, this form that doesn't even suit you..."

"It is worth every shred of agony when I lie in your arms."

As soon as she finished her sentence, he kissed her, holding onto her tightly; a deep, passionate kiss, as though he was trying to draw all of her pain away. All of it, from the very moment she became unhappy so many years ago.

And once again, they made love beneath the stars; the pain of the day once again forgotten.

Begrudgingly, they parted ways at the gates of Whiterun. Though they each told themselves it would not be for long, it did not dissipate the sadness that grew from being apart.

But it had to be this way, Farkas realized, watching her retreat into her shop. She had to tend to all the things that had accumulated in her two week absence. And when he walked away and his lupine hearing picked up on her aghast scream, he knew he was right. He couldn't help but laugh. Some things never changed.

He wasn't in such humor when he got to Jorrvaskr, however. There was a crowd around the steps- and with it the low chatter of those who had just witnessed something unspeakable. "What's happened?" He demanded, fear filling him, and he ran to the first person he saw there- an old woman- resisting the urge to grab and shake her. "What's going on?"

"I-I-I don't know...some people s-s-snuck into the city and attacked Jorrvaskr..."

Farkas pushed past the woman - looked out to the grass, where the bodies of several dead Silver Hand warriors laid.

_The Silver Hand..._

"Damnit!" He ran up the steps into Jorrvaskr, throwing open the doors.

"Where have you been?" Aela was on him instantaneously. "Damnit, where were you?"

"I was out making sure the Newborn didn't eat any villagers! What the hell happened?"

"Why don't you see for yourself?" Aela spat. "We _needed_ you, Farkas. _Kodlak_ needed you."

"...Kodlak?" No. No, it couldn't be.

Aela pointed down the steps, where Vilkas was tending a body.

Farkas ran down the steps, unable to believe the sight before him. Kodlak's corpse. "...No..."

He fell to his knees...holding his hands out, though he dare not touch. "..Kodlak..."

"They attacked us in revenge, brother," Vilkas said. "We were all out in the yard, and you were gone. They saw their chance, and took it. Kodlak fought well, and died. Surely he is in Sovngarde now."

"...Did he...cure himself?"

"Aye, he did..." Vilkas paused. "...I did, too."

Farkas looked at his brother then, with new eyes. He was right; he smelled like mere man, now. He would talk with him about it later. Right now...

"..Let's prepare his funeral," Farkas said hollowly.

Celeste had shown up at the door, not long afterwards, sensing trouble, but Aela had sent her away until the funeral, to be held that night.

She showed up just before sunset, right on time; and he loved her all the more for it. She said nothing, upon seeing him- she didn't have to. She just _knew_ what had happened-this 'bond' thing, he supposed-and she hugged him then, tightly, until the sun had truly set and it was time to light the pyre.

She held his left hand in both of hers- so tiny, her hands(he marveled at the wonder). And together, they watched his mentor- and hers, too, to a degree- burn and ascend to Sovngarde, the ashes swallowed by the hungry sky.

Farkas hated himself, more than anything. He was overcome with guilt, he should have been there...he should have...

Celeste turned his face to look at her. Their eyes met, and no words were spoken, but he understood that she was scolding him for his self-pity, and he had to quirk his lips into a smile, even though he didn't truly feel like it.

"Take the night and rest, brother," Vilkas said from behind the two; Celeste let go of Farkas' face and they both turned to face him.

Celeste noticed that Vilkas hadn't really been able to look at her the entire night – and he still couldn't. Her new nose told her that he was no longer wolf, but human.

"...I expected you to...be much angrier." He admitted.

"No," Celeste said. "I don't blame you, Vilkas."

Vilkas looked at her, his eyes widening. "...Why not?"

"Because," Celeste said, smiling softly. "Only prey runs."

Vilkas shook his head, and was about to protest, when Farkas interjected-

"Quiet, Vilkas. She has forgiven you. Don't question it."

Vilkas looked mildly irritated, but nodded. "...Thank you." He turned and left, never one for emotional situations like this.

"Let me stay with you," Celeste said, "I don't want to leave you alone like this."

"I was actually hoping you would let me stay with you tonight."

Celeste smiled. "You don't even have to ask."

That night, she held him tightly. He didn't even have the strength to be mad that she'd messed up her room again, supplies strewn everywhere. He was a grown man, but in the presence of all the tragedy of the last month – in _her_ presence- all he wanted to do was curl up to her breast, listen to her heartbeat, and allow himself to be comforted. To let the silent tears come.

She ran her fingers through his hair, and murmured soft things to him. At first, they were easy enough to understand- tales of her as a young child, growing up in an orphanage; stories of the first boy she ever liked and other such innocent tales of youth discovering life. Stories of finding things out the hard way.

And he realized, that with her stories, she was trying to tell him something.

"Everyone dies, my love," She murmured into his hair. "The important thing is to focus on what is here and now. Live how Kodlak would want you to live. Honor him in that."

He took in a deep breath, taking in the scent of her. "He wouldn't want me to be a wolf."

"...Do _you _want to be a wolf?"

"...I don't know, anymore. I used to. But...Kodlak got me thinking."

"...Well," Celeste said, and he could tell- she was worried about something. "...I will support you in whatever you choose."

"Don't worry, dear," He said, and brought his fingertips up to draw tiny circles on her arm- reveling in how she shivered at the light touch. "Whether we are wolves are not, we will still end him. I promise you."

Celeste smiled and kissed his head again. "Go to sleep," She chided softly.

For once, he gave in and obeyed her order.


	13. Chapter 13: Pack

"I want to come with you."

Farkas stopped, his hand on the door, and turned to face Celeste. He looked into her eyes, and she instantly looked away. He said nothing.

"I know what you're thinking," She said quietly, "...But I...I won't be any trouble. I can help. Really, I can. Kodlak was good to me, even though we didn't know each other well. And...I want to help you."

Farkas sighed, and walked over to his mate, taking her face in his hands. He looked into her eyes, and did now allow her to look away. "When was the last time you used a blade?"

"I...I had to defend the carriage on my way here."

"...So...two months ago?"

She nodded as best she could, and Farkas let go of her face, sighing.

"I don't know, Celeste."

"Please, Farkas. I want to become stronger. I don't...I don't want to be useless anymore."

"You were never useless in the first place," Farkas said sharply.

Celeste's gaze upon him was steady.

Farkas sighed once more, and turned away. "It's not my call. I'll ask the others, then we'll swing back and let you know. Either way, we're leaving tonight."

"...Farkas?"

"Yeah?"

"...I...don't have any armor."

Farkas felt his heart melt at the pain and vulnerability in her voice. He turned around and held out his hand to her, saying nothing, his face stoic.

Celeste blinked a few times, then broke out into a huge grin, and took his hand.

He pulled her close to him, putting his arm around her waist. "Let's see if I can convince Eorland to make you some-"

Celeste hurriedly pulled out from under his arm and away from him; He blinked at her in confusion.

"...What?"

"Eorland Gray-Mane," She says slowly, in disbelief.

"...Yeah?..."

"The most famous blacksmith in all of Skyrim..."

"...It's not like he really acts like that, Celes-"

"I don't deserve armor from him when I'm so out of practice!"

Farkas covered his face with his hand. "..I'm going, Celeste," He said, finally losing patience, and left her shop, letting the door slam behind him. What was with her- really? She wanted to start training again? Not only that, she wanted to place herself in the middle of danger! And yet she didn't want armor from Eorland? Gods he loved the woman, but he would never understand what it was with her and clothing.

Speaking of her armor -he thought, as he continued along to Jorrvaskr- she wouldn't be wear the same armor as the rest of them. Iron and steel were far too heavy for her in her human form. It would have to be leather, or something studded, until she built up her strength. He didn't like the idea of her wearing anything but the sturdiest armor, but what choice did he have- truly? She was probably going to be enough of a hindrance as it was...

He heard her running up from behind him, and smiled as she slid her hand into his. "Changed your mind?"

"Yes," She said firmly, a look of intense determination on her face.

Farkas couldn't help but smirk at that. "Well, then. I was just thinking about your armor and weapons."

"Always, I have used leather, and daggers- swords on occasion. I'm not sure I could handle iron or steel armor without the Gift- at least, not yet."

"No daggers," He said gruffly.

"Why not?"

"Because, Celeste, you have to get too close to people to use them."

"Usually I'm on the target before they even notice me."

He gave her a sharp look.

"...Farkas," She said, a little irritated, "I am _going_ to pick which blade I would rather use."

"Oh, and being someone well trained in the art of combat doesn't make me enough of an expert to have a say?"

"I don't fight like you do."

"You will soon."

"_Fine_," She said, in the way only a woman can say it- in which the word doesn't actually mean 'fine', but 'fuck you!' "But until then, I'm choosing my own weapons."

Farkas glared at her for a moment, and then sighed, looking to the sky. "This is hard enough for me to even think about, Celeste. Until two weeks ago, I didn't even know you could lift a sword."

"And you don't think it's even harder for me, returning to the battlefield when I've purposely stayed out of it for so long?"

"I don't understand why you want to in the first place."

"Because Kodlak was my friend. Because Kodlak was like a father to you. Because I want to become stronger. Because, _damnit,_ you're my mate and I want to be by your side."

He stopped then, and stopped her with him, hands on her shoulders. He looked down at her, Jorrvaskr mere feet away. "You _will_ become stronger. And never once think that I would ever want you gone from my side. I only want you to be safe."

"I will be," Celeste insisted, cupping his cheek. "And, I'll be safer if you let me become strong like I want to."

Farkas sighed, and nodded. "Fine. You win. But...tonight is still not my call." He led her into the yard, and pointed towards the Skyforge. "Eorland is up there. Go talk to him, and I'll speak to the others about you joining us in this battle."

"But-"

"No buts. No one who fights alongside the Circle wears anything less than the best armor. Tell him to bill you for it later, and we'll work it out."

Celeste was still staring at him as he entered the hall.

_Eorland Gray-Mane._ Celeste just about squealed in excitement. The man was famous, and she was going to ask him to make armor for her! She had never been an armor-smith herself, but this man was...well! He was the absolute top-rung when it came to armor, just like Radiant Rainments in Solitude was the top tier in clothing. And now she was going to be able to not only have new armor- armor that was her very own, and _not_ from the Brotherhood – but the very _best_.

Things were really looking up!

She was practically skipping on her way up to the Skyforge, where, true to Farkas' word, Eorland worked. She had to stop for a moment and just admire his work: even at his old age, he still crafted his work with such precision. Such skill.

But she about froze when Eorland turned to face her, wiping sweat off his brow.

"Ah! Lass! There you are. You've been out in the fields for quite a while. Have you gotten the hang of things yet?"

It occurred to her that she didn't know just how many within the companions knew of the Circle's lycanthropy. However, it was obvious from his statement that Eorland did. "I don't know," She said honestly, looking at the man,"I'm apparently not a very good at it."

"How so?"

"Well, I don't enjoy killing things. Though I do enjoy chasing them."

Eorland looked at her appraisingly, and she cast her eyes down, feeling nervous.

"Aye, lass. You've got a peaceful soul, you do. That doesn't make you 'bad at it.' It just makes you different. And what would the world be without diversity?"

Celeste, despite herself, grinned and looked up at the man sheepishly.

"But, I assume you're up here for more than just a conversation with an old man."

"Well..." Celeste cast her gaze to the side again. "...Farkas told me to come up here and ask you for some armor."

"Did he, now?" Eorland walked forward and studied her, even walking in a circle around her to get a good grasp of her build and proportions.

She knew that this was merely for the purpose of crafting, but Celeste still felt awkward- even self-conscious. Surely Eorland would bring up how, even if he bothered making her armor, she couldn't wear it. How she was far too small, too soft...

"Leather, then?"

Celeste blinked in surprise, looking at him again, this time with her eyes wide. "..W...yes. How did...?"

"My girl." He put his hand on her shoulder. "You are built for agility, and stealth, not brute strength. Iron and steel would not serve you."

Celeste felt herself filling with happiness. She didn't deserve such kindness, but it lightened her heart...and made her so happy she ended up throwing her arms around the old man, repeating over, and over, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Okay, okay..." Eorland patted her awkwardly on the back. "..Don't get too carried away."

She lets go of him, excitement and admiration written all over her face.

"...By Talos, woman. It's just some armor." Eorland looked embarrassed.

"But it's _the best_ armor." She assented.

"...That's what people say, but I don't tend to agree. Anyway, come. I'll get your measurements..."

"Celeste wants to come with us," Farkas announced tiredly, as he entered the mead hall, approaching his brother and shield-sister.

"Of course she does," Aela said, "She savors the hunt."

"No," said Farkas, "She doesn't. She wants to come to avenge Kodlak."

Aela looked at him strangely. "She is wolf, of course she-"

"She does _not_, Aela," Farkas said, losing patience. "She is different. As she has always been."

"She said she knew how to use a blade," Vilkas interjected, "If that is the case, then fine. As long as she has her own blades and armor."

"Eorland's getting that taken care of."

"Then that is fine. We move out at dusk. But there is one issue we have to settle," Aela said.

"...Harbringer," Farkas said, sighing.

"Yes." Vilkas said. "I nominate Aela."

"What? Me?"

"I second it. Congratulations, Aela, you're the new Harbringer."

"Just a moment!" She snapped, "Vilkas, did you look over Kodlak's journal? Did he mention anything about..."

"Yes," Vilkas said, "You."

Aela was silent.

"It makes sense, Aela. Who else could be? Me?" Farkas laughed. "I don't have the mind or the patience. And Vilkas just doesn't have the patience."

Vilkas scowled at his brother and said nothing.

And with that, it was settled, and the Circle sat to discuss battle tactics.

A few hours later, Celeste came into the hall- and Farkas almost didn't recognize her. She was clad head to toe in brown and green leather, and looked like a right and proper hunter- like the kind that he sometimes met in the forests when he was out on the job. She wore that armor like she was born to: with confidence, and grace. Her hair was braided back. At her sides she wore two swords- he smirked at this small victory- and on her back, a bow and a quiver of arrows.

"You wear that armor well, sister," Aela said, standing up. "But how well do you fire?"

"Aela," Celeste said, and a soft smile played across her lips. "They'll never hear me coming, nor know what caused their death."

The new Harbringer grinned wickedly,"Let's move out," and strode towards the door, patting Celeste on the shoulder as she passed.

Vilkas soon followed. "You wear that armor well, but don't slow us down," He said to her, before turning his gaze away and following Aela.

That left only the two lovers.

Celeste looked at Farkas sheepishly. "Well?"

Farkas finally shook himself out of his daze. He strode over to her and encircled her waist with arm...then pulled her roughly to him and kissed her passionately.

After a few seconds, he pulled away from her, looking into her eyes. "That answer your question?"

Celeste could only blink, dazed.

"Come on. Let's catch up." Farkas let go of her and bounded out the door.

Celeste took a few more seconds to recover, before calling out- "HEY!"- and running out the door after him – after all of them. Her new friends.

Pack.

There was no doubt that Celeste's skills were rusty, but all it took was a little practice, and she was able to meld into the shadows once more. They had a system; Farkas first, then Vilkas, while she and Aela hung back and fired bows from the shadows. If an enemy discovered her, it didn't matter; the others made sure none of them got near her.

That is not to say she escaped without injuries- though..mostly, they were inflicted by her own inexperience. She tripped a few traps and got hit by a few darts; the most severe trap was a giant log that came down from the ceiling and smashed her into the wall. It hurt; she could tell that she was somewhat injured; but it wasn't the same. Whereas before, these things may have killed her, she was only bruised and cut, the pain was much easier to deal with- and it was absolutely gone with a single potion, provided to her by the others, much more experienced in this kind of thing.

"...Can hardly believe this," She muttered softly, as one of her arrows took out a Silver Hand that had just about to take a swing for Vilkas.

"It is the power of the wolf, sister," Aela said, "Your senses are heightened. You have gained strength. See then, that this is not a curse, but a gift."

Celeste understood now the debate within the Circle. This could indeed be a gift, an invaluable asset in battle...but she hadn't gotten a good night's sleep since, and she knew for a fact that Farkas never slept well, either. She felt sort of achy at times- particularly in her joints. Farkas had told her that the others _had_ to hunt, or the bloodlust would overwhelm them. She hadn't experienced that, yet. When she had hunted with him, she had hunted to be by his side, and so that she wouldn't be hungry anymore.

She herself, planned to keep this gift, at least until she had fulfilled the promise she made all those years ago: to kill Arnbjorn.

She marveled at how four people could make such short work of an entire keep, and its leader. She marveled more at the skill and ferocity of the others- she felt out of place, almost, in her stealth and snipe strategy. But...this is how she was trained. This was the only way she knew.

_You will fight like us soon,_ Farkas had said, and Celeste hoped that it was true. She wanted to disown anything having to do with that period of her life- including her fighting style.

When it was all said and done, and she stared at the last remaining Silver Hand member's dead body, she almost couldn't believe it was real.

"Well done."

The words didn't register at first, but after a second, she realized that they came from Aela, and she turned to face the red-headed woman. "...You think so?" She asked softly. She wasn't so sure.

"Aye. That I do. See, Farkas, what did I tell you. Your woman carries herself like a hunter. And you didn't believe me."

Farkas grunted.

Celeste searched her mate's face for signs of his emotions. Then she realized, she didn't have to look quite so hard. Instead, she closed her eyes and felt across the bond to sense what he was feeling. She hoped, against all hope, that what he felt was pride. She wanted him to be proud of her, more than anything. She wanted to know that he believed she could take care of herself. She wanted him to see potential in her. She wanted him to be happy.

But the emotion that came across the bond was not pride...it was not happiness...

...It was fear.


	14. Chapter 14: Bond

Celeste's head snapped towards her lover, and she stared at him without shame.. "...Honey?" She asked, her voice tentative. Why was he scared? What ailed him? His face gave nothing away, but the silver-gray of his eyes confirmed his emotions. He looked away from her.

"You three go on back," Farkas said, turning away fully, "I'll stay behind and make sure we got all of them."

"But.." Celeste didn't want to leave him. She wanted to ask him why he was afraid. She didn't understand. Had she shamed him? Was he afraid because she was a terrible warrior?

She felt Aela's hand on her shoulder. "Come, sister. We will talk. Farkas will be alright."

Reluctantly, Celeste allowed herself to be led away by Aela and Vilkas, though her thoughts never left her mate.

"Why?" She asked, when they broke into the night; the moon shone clear, like a truth in a far away place that she would never reach.

"Why what?" Vilkas asked sharply. She was starting to realize that this was his way, and that his short manner and constantly irritated behavior actually meant nothing about what he truly thought of who he was speaking to.

"Why is he afraid?"

"Heh," Vilkas laughed softly. "Don't you worry about that. He'll get over it."

"But _why_?" She insisted, and there was a whining edge to her voice. She colored slightly. She felt a bit like a child, but this was important. She _needed_ to know.

Vilkas and Aela were quiet for a few seconds, and Celeste felt like she would die from the suspense.

Finally, Vilkas spoke up. "All my brother knows is fighting. He feels that all he can offer you is protection. What do you need of him, when you can protect yourself so well?"

Celeste's mouth went dry. "But...that's ridiculous," She said, aghast.

"Maybe so," Aela said, "But it is not us you need to convince of that."

Celeste sighed, picking at her sleeves. "It's such a silly fear."

"Why is that, exactly?" Vilkas' tone was different this time; not quite so snide, almost curious. If she didn't know better she would say he was honestly interested.

"Because I could never be as strong as him. I'm not even good." She felt humiliated, admitting this. "I'm not a Companion, or..."

"You're different," Vilkas said, "But in your way, you are a strong fighter. You don't have to wield a battleaxe and wear iron to take care of yourself."

Celeste felt red again blossom on her face- this time at the praise. "But I'm really not-"

"But you are," Aela said. "Listen. We don't say that to just anyone. Your arrows are sound, and if I couldn't smell you I'm fairly sure I would have lost you in the room. Though if you ask me, the Ice-Brain ought to be excited. He could take you with him on jobs and you'd be an unbeatable team."

"I don't want to fight," Celeste said hurriedly. Now _she_ was afraid, the subject matter becoming something else entirely.

"Then why did you learn in the first place?"

"I had no choice."

Aela and Vilkas fell silent, waiting for her to continue. She didn't. The secret was hers to keep, and they didn't need to know. Thankfully, they didn't press, and they continued in silence, the moon as their witness.

Celeste chewed on her bottom lip, looking up at the sky. Her breath came out in a soft fog, and it struck her that she was finally used to the frigid air of Skyrim. "You know what amazes me," She murmured, aware that what she was about to say was incredibly off-topic...but that was what she needed right now.

"What's that?" Aela asked; Celeste supposed that neither of her companions were much for small talk, but she had to fill the air, somehow. Too much silence made her crazy, made her remember.

_Silence, my brother._

She pushed the thought away with her hurried words, "The sky." It sounded stupid and incomplete, so she elaborated. "It's the same as in Cyrodiil. Somehow, I expected it to be different." The sentence hung in the air, and she felt awkward, hunching over. She should stop talking, she realized, but she couldn't. If she stopped talking, then she would be alone with the memories of a past she was working hard to forget.

So she talked to them about anything and everything from sweet rolls to shoes, and by the time they got back, Aela and Vilkas looked ready to kill her.

Farkas stayed in the keep for a long time as he tried to comprehend the truth.

Celeste was strong. Celeste...used to be a part of the Dark Brotherhood.

She had made it out like she had been so bad as an assassin. But from what he could tell, there was no way that could be true. Her technical skills were precise. He had originally been worried she'd misfire and hit him with an arrow, but not only did that not happen, she'd become one with the shadows completely, becoming almost invisible.

Sure, there were better. She wouldn't beat Aela in a firing contest- indeed, not many could. But she had seriously undervalued her own fighting skills. She had no idea what she was truly capable of. And it was because...

She had been a part of the Dark Brotherhood.

By the gods, he couldn't get his mind around it.

He was pacing the rooms of the keep angrily, killing any survivors without mercy. His sweet little Celeste had killed innocent people. Had orphaned children.

And it _wasn't her fault._

He knew there would be some that would argue that point, but he didn't care. Who could tell another how to act in that situation? They had kidnapped her when she was a child; brainwashed her; _broken_ her...

And then, he was _furious._

Rage overtook him and his wolf-brother burst forth and took to the hills. Before, when she had told him her story, it hadn't really sunk in. But now, it was clear as day that she'd been telling the truth. She'd been taken as a child, a sweet, innocent child, and forced to kill other people for profit. He'd seen the proof of it tonight.

No matter how much game he killed, no matter how much blood his fangs shed, it didn't satisfy him. He didn't want to kill deer or rabbits or goats. He wanted to slaughter the Dark Brotherhood. Every last one of them. He knew some of their names; the important ones, the leader and her husband...Astrid, the tall blonde, and Arnbjorn, the traitorous ex-Companion.

He tried to picture them from the details Celeste had told him: a beautiful woman with a deadly glare, a tall Nord with a scarred face and gray hair. They were such vague descriptions that he couldn't put the faces together, and that made him angrier.

He would make this right. If it was his last act in the world, the finalwhisper in his dying breath...he would make it right.

By the time the night was done, the snow was stained red with the blood of the innocent.

_Blood for blood._

While she escaped from Aela and Vilkas alive, she wasn't able to sleep.

She had grown used to her giant lover sleeping peacefully beside her. His scent, wilderness and battle and loyalty, was still in her bed. But he was not – and because being along wasn't something she was used to anymore, she was anxious.

On top of that, felt Farkas' anxiety and anger leaking through their bond. She could feel that, but he was not letting her be privy to his thoughts. To combat the compounded stress, she worked on all of her back-orders, and when she was done with that, her current orders; and when she was done with that it was still an hour before sunrise. He was still not back.

Her fingers were pricked and bleeding and raw from her anxious sewing and fastidious work. She started doing something she never did - cleaning around the house - because there was nothing else to do. She became more anxious with each passing minute. Did he not want her anymore? Did she disgust him?

The others said she was strong in her own way; an efficient hunter. But all those beatings and painful lessons, the assurance that she was merely mediocre...she was sure Astrid was right. She wasn't meant for killing people. Was it mediocrity that Farkas saw? Or was it worse?

...Maybe he finally saw the blood on her hands.

The thought made vomit rise in her throat. The scream of the orphaned boy rang in her ears and she covered them with her hands, screaming along with him. All she wanted as a peaceful life, away; far, far away from that life. She wanted to pretend that it never happened, but her past deeds haunted her in her dreams and in the moments between sleeping and waking.

She ran the water too hot and it burned her hands; she tried to cut and salt the meat but she cut her forearm; she tried to move a box of potatoes and she dropped it on her toe. All these things, these little pains; her anxiety, her mate's anxiety, and the dreadful truth of Ophelia turned her eyesight red, and suddenly, she wanted all of it gone.

She threw all the dirty pots on the ground, knocked the vegetables from the counter-top, broke her finest china on the kitchen floor. Still unsatisfied, she went to her work table and scattered and ripped her papers, orders, new designs...

She paused momentarily as she saw her newest dresses, waiting to be displayed when she had room. But then she saw her latest work: a beautiful, pure-white wedding dress embedded with real pearls. It was to be fashioned with a lily corsage when the time came. If she ever got married...she could never wear anything like that. The dress would have to be red, for...

She tore the dress apart using her hands and nails and teeth and she didn't stop until it was shreds and the pearls scattered across the floor like broken dreams.

Celeste went through her entire home like that, causing disaster and chaos to everything she had worked so hard to create. She left not a single room untouched in all three of her floors. She wanted nothing in particular except for relief; relief from her pain, relief from all the worry and stress. She just wanted to feel better.

More than anything, she wanted Farkas to come home and say he still loved her.

When there was nothing more to overturn or destroy, she sat there in the ruins of her front room, the last to face her wrath. She was too exhausted to continue, having worked through the night on the time-proven fuel of anxiety. She lay against the hearth, the fire long since burned out, all dried tears and puffy eyes.

About an hour after sunrise, the door swung open.

He did not care about the mess. He did not care about her burnt and bleeding hands, the cut on her arm, her swollen foot.

He did not care about the debris and rubble and the pearls that somehow clung stubbornly to her tattered nightgown.

He ignored the fact that she looked sad and tired and her eyes were puffy, ignored the fact that she had been up all night. He had too, and he did not look any better.

He slammed the door behind him, leaving a smear of blood across it.

He strode right across the floor and pulled his mate up to her feet, looking right into her eyes, gold into silver, the Sun and the Moon.

"I don't care how long it takes. I don't care how many of them there are. I don't care how skilled they are. I don't care if they live in the gates of Oblivion. We will find them, and we will end them. I will kill _everyone who did this to you._"

His words were like stone, and as he spoke them, they became not only promise but oath, prophecy, the events of the future.

"But Fa-"  
>"<em>And,"<em> He continued roughly, not letting her interrupt him, "When it is all over, you will marry me."

Though it was phrased like a command, from the look in his eyes, she knew it was a question. A much deeper, more profound question than words could ever describe.

"Yes," She exhaled, breathlessly.

She did not know how either of them found the energy to be up a few more celebratory hours, but those hours were filled with such passion, love, and relief, that doing anything else seemed completely pointless in comparison.


End file.
